34. Do I want to be single now?

I've never been single.

May 09, 2022

I’ve spent the last 48 hours feeling absolutely terrible, this is what happens when you take care of your sick boyfriend, you get it afterwards. I’d never felt such intense pain throughout my body until yesterday, everything hurt all the time. On top of that, throw in a fever, headache, runny nose and nausea; it’s been horrendous.

The reason I’m telling you this isn’t because I need to complain, which I also do a little bit because I’m still sick as I write this, but because I’ve been thinking a lot the last 48 hours about the idea of being single.

Let me rewind to about a month ago when I was in Madrid and I met up with my friend Sophie, I was telling her about this feeling I had about never having been single or done things as a person whose single. This thought came from seeing girls I follow on Instagram and YouTube break up with their long term partners because at the age of 25-30 they realised that they wanted time to be alone and find themselves as single women. This made me think about the fact that I’ve never been single either and I felt stressed about me needing this space in the future too.

It suddenly dawned on me that I’ve never had my own apartment entirely to myself, I’ve never gone apartment hunting alone, never paid bills by myself, never done a food shop just for myself…

I shared this idea with Sophie and she told me that “single doesn’t mean independent” and that’s probably where I was getting mixed up. My boyfriend and I actively give each other our own space whenever we need it and we also do our own thing a lot of the time. For instance, as I write this pomelo, my boyfriend is in his workshop cutting wood into smaller pieces with his drill/cutting machine that makes a lot of noise and (I think) is very dangerous.

I’ve had a lot of time on my hands today seen as I haven’t been able to sleep as much as yesterday and I’ve spent most of my day sat on the sofa staring out of the window looking at the fields and mountains. I asked myself what I’d be doing if I lived here alone as a single woman feeling really sick, how would I handle this? The conclusion I came to would be that I’d do the exact same things: sleep a lot, have boiling hot showers, cuddle my teddy and fluffy blanket and cry a bit too. I also figured that I’d call someone to ask them to come and take care of me or at least give me some hugs which is what my boyfriend has been doing. This made me realise that 1. Being single and being sick must be terrible and 2. We’re independent people that are always there for each other whenever we need it, which is perfect.

If I hadn’t had seen these videos and IG posts about women my age becoming single to feel more independent, I never would have even crossed my mind. This is also linked to the current hyped idea of “being that girl” which is cool for all of those who are in that current head space and happen to be living their life that way, but this doesn’t mean that is should be a 2022 canon. Women nowadays are expected to be hot, healthy, active, intelligent, organised, friendly and successful all by their own means. At least things are changing and women *can* be seen as all of these things along with being single, years ago that would have been unthought of, but let’s not stress about it either.

Some days I don’t feel like meditating or going on “silly little walks” - as the internet calls them - I want to stay in bed an extra hour and make my morning coffee in my trackies and my hair in a bun. Some days I don’t have the brain power to read my books so I watch YouTube videos instead. Other days I don’t want to do exercise and even the thought of wearing workout clothes makes me feel uncomfortable and then, there are other days when I do loads of active things without even realising it. Having stomach issues and IBS doesn’t make you an “IBS queen” as many people call it on Instagram, having IBS sucks! Been there done that, got too many t-shirts, I’m all for romanticising your life, I do it too, but there has to be balance in everything and you don’t need to meet anybody else’s standards, you do you. Some days we’ll “be that girl” and some days we’ll be whatever else, that’s the magic of it all.

Our brains play games on us a lot of the time which is why I think it’s important to try to work on our mental health as often as possible to try to keep it stable. When we have stable ideas and have a clear visual on what we want to achieve, our brains don’t absorbe as much from the outside world to fill in the gaps. You’re more focussed on yourself and what’s coming from inside of you (at least in my case).

I can’t keep up with these constantly changing TikTok and Instagram ideals. I’m extremely happy with the life my boyfriend and I have worked so hard to build, I’m proud of where I’m at as an individual and everything that I’ve accomplished. None of these ideas about needing to be single to be independent would have even crossed my mind if it weren’t for social media so maybe that’s the culprit.

All in all, these 48 hours of being sick and digging inside of my brain have made me understand that I don’t need to follow what other people are doing, I’m creating my own path in life and that’s cool too. Being sick sucks and I’m really grateful to have not been completely alone and I tend to forget how much my brain absorbs from images it sees and texts it reads on social media - I want to work on that.