The Art of Being Alone

*Originally published under Branded Magazine in August 2016. 

Millennial culture means romanticizing everything. From disloyal friends, through unsupportive parents, and all the way to losing the one we love.

When it comes to dating, we tend to focus heavily on the ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ and the ‘Sex & The City’ aspects of being single, and pay very little mind to the ‘Live and Let Learn’ of it all.

I’ve been in a relationship with every method of coping, and I can tell you that my time spent as Elizabeth Gilbert only resulted in Pad Thai inspired food poisoning, and the Carrie Bradshaw flipside of it all gave me nothing but the courtesy of waking up next to a man draped in nothing but a Cat Onesie. Both resulted in a hard reflection of what it is I value in life.

Though I certainly saw the celebratory benefits of breaking up as a teenager, as we age readapting to singlehood is less about rebounding and more about learning to confront the invisible barrier between ‘her’ side of the bed and ‘his’.

It’s less about learning to love again, or discovering yourself, and more about learning to be at ease with your own company.

One of the biggest lies we’re told about being single is that we’ll discover something about ourselves we wouldn’t have otherwise seen. Complete and utter bullshit. We are who we are regardless of whom we love. Your descriptors (be it ‘funny’, ‘kind’, ‘attentive’, ‘alarming’, ‘slightly sociopathic’, or the like) remain no matter who you wake up beside. Whether you realize it or not, you are the person you are.

The boy who broke me did not teach me my worth. He did not make me stronger or smarter. His exit from my life did not, under any circumstances, make me a better person. In contrast, taking the world on alone allowed me to remove him as a defining feature of my worth, strength, intellect, and heart.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s not always simple. Some days are easy, while others I find myself drafting emails in an inspired attempt to get the Dove Men+Care line discontinued so that I can once again roam the streets without having PTS flashbacks.

But by the end of most days, I’ve walked a mile further than I would have while holding his hand. I’ve tried something new, gone to a restaurant he never would have taken me to, or have taken only the back roads, knowing that no one is waiting on me to come home.

I’ve become comfortable being on my own and going about my day without the relief of someone else’s shadow laying next to mine.

This is not to be misconstrued as an open letter to the boy who left me, thanking him for changing me. Because he didn’t. Just as leaving me didn’t change him. Instead, it forced me to learn how to get along without him.

Instead of spending Sunday evenings fighting over what horror movie to throw on Netflix, I learned to embrace the expanse of my bed and dig into the stack of novels I’d otherwise been neglecting. I learned to turn the stereo up a little bit louder because I’m no longer waiting for his response from the passenger seat. I learned to let go when I deleted all of our message screenshots and boxed up his old clothes. I learned to put me first and be.

It’s easy to lose sight when you have someone else standing in as a frame of reference. When they’re no longer present, the blinders are stripped away and we are forced to confront ourselves in a way we may never have found necessary.

Our likes, our dislikes, our fears, our priorities. Be it Pokémon GO, seeing the world, or learning to cook the perfect brunch. Everything once again comes to the forefront.