Self-Partnered: The Freeing, True Joy I’ve Learned Being Single

I’ve been on one date since I broke up almost two years ago.

One that taught me a lot and opened my eyes to the changes within me and invited me to get to know the Alissa I am now.

He and I never had a second date, but we text almost every other day. We’ve become very good friends. Sometimes I forget we even went on a date. When we were discussing dating and other relationships, he said something that stopped me. “I suspect you’ll treat dating like I do. A mere distraction from being lonely.”

Quickly I replied, “I think you and I approach this differently. I don’t want or need a distraction hence why I’m not interested in someone else’s company. I like where I am, and I’ve found there’s really not a great enough payoff to allow a distraction.”

“Good for you.” A signature dismissive and slightly jaded, curt cut-off to end the conversation.

“When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.”

― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“I don’t know that you want to find a partner.” A friend dropped on me recently.

I think they’re right.

Once I found this much liberation within myself, I can’t turn back.

One of the things about being single that I’ve found most people hate about it forces you to be with yourself. In a relationship you can bury yourself into the needs of someone else. You can fool yourself a lot longer when you’re in the throes of relationships. There’s not a lot of distraction from that inner voice when it’s just you. There are some nights that are just cruel. I mean your worst fears screaming in your mind and you’re afraid to go to sleep. Other nights are so empowering you can’t believe someone would choose to have a partner.

One of the things I couldn’t answer early-on in therapy was what brings me happiness and joy. Some days the answers are there, some are blank. But what has changed is that I think I know how to go in search of what does bring me joy. My joy isn’t going to look carefree like it may in others. My joy is similar to my story, uniquely mine and doesn’t have to match yours. Neither of our stories take away from each other.

You experience the world in a new way when you stop wondering what the world wants from you and focus on what you want from the world. Not only changing the narrative but writing the narrative is what my breakthrough moment was. I have the power to write the narrative.

When people ask me how I learned to be okay with being single, it gives me pause. “Okay with being single.” Like it’s an infectious disease you learn to live with. Everyone reacts differently and chooses to take what they need from an experience. For me, I used being single as a start to dig into my soul, grieve, mourn, grow and discard every single part of my inner self that has held me back from myself. For two years I’ve been digging, burrowing, clearing the cobwebs and trying to find the version of myself that it would take to be comfortable self-partnered.

Since becoming self-partnered, I’ve:

• Moved to Chicago and navigated being a fish out of water (Kansas)
• Adopted a dog and took on single dog mom life
• Traveled by myself
• Planned international travel by myself
• Taken myself on dates to fine dining restaurants
• Seen a movie alone and countless other “solo” experiences that took away the stigma of needing a partner to live your life
• Started new hobbies
• Become physically active and changed my myself about my body
• Weathered and navigated a pandemic, WFH and being truly isolated for a year
• Updated my personal style to reflect this new period of my life
• Met new friends
• Changed my mindset from no to what if?
• Countless breakthroughs that have shifted my perspective and shaken the ground on which I thought my foundation was build on
  
  And numerous other experiences that just seem “normal” to do now as a self-partnered person

I’ve found the more I’ve grown in being self-partnered, it actually unnerves those around me. The subconscious projection of, ‘I couldn’t be comfortable alone, so how can you?’ is pervasive. You disturb a lot of people when you’re confident in who you are. For some, they’ll find you haughty for saying you prefer your own company. Others, well, they find you to be paying the good PR to the sort of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ journey you must be on. And yet others take it as a critique on whatever their greatest insecurity is. The truth, in my life, is in-between.

Perhaps I am a little proud of the work I’ve done to be joyful in who I am. I am on my own Eat, Pray, Love journey of sorts. Aren’t we all though? I’m proud that for two years I’ve dug into myself to be who I am now. I earned this and I’m not done digging and discovering. So many people don’t take the opportunity to be single, alone, whatever you want to call it, and shape it into something that can only be described as transformative.

Do I think about a partner? Yes. I often send them mental messages I hope they get. “I hope you’re having a good day.” “I wonder if we know each other.” “I wonder if we will ever meet.” But do I think about how a partner would make my life better? No. I think about the adventures we’ll have, what a crazy love story I hope we have and that I hope I never forget I’m self-partnered before their partner.

I didn’t expect to find joy in this season. Wait, I did not expect to be open to feeling joy in this season. When I turned my focus to find out what I want out of life, experiences and so on, I found it got really muddy. Really muddy. But then we turned a corner and I found myself smiling. A lot. And being willing to experience what I was closed off to before. I removed the “that’s not who I am” from my vocabulary and instead asked, “Do I want to let this in?” Most of this time has been spent finding out who I want to be for the rest of my life. Laying the foundation for me to continue to experience unbridled joy.

I said it in this post, but for the first time in my life, I’m rooting for myself. I’m playing on the team for ME and not in opposition to myself. Perhaps you’ve always been on your own side, but I haven’t. And the beauty of it is, I know how to show up for myself now which previously in relationships I could only do for my partner.

I hope you find a want to want yourself in the way you want someone else. That you find joy in discomfort and growing into who you are. Find out how to show up for yourself and never abandon your self-partnering.

Love,

Alissa