I watched her eyes as she told me of this eternal ache in her soul.

We were asking one another if the grief of love unattainable ever relents.

Sitting at the mouth of the Columbia watching the pseudo stillness of the river filled with its untold number of dangers lurking beneath the surface I notice a tiny sailboat pass in the space between two giant barges, anchored somewhere far beneath where I can see.  

That’s me. That’s what I feel like. I think.

I am that tiny sailboat slowly yet assuredly moving myself against the current, navigating between the giant imposing presence of not yet and maybe never. In the midst of this huge expanse that is roiling with the presence of emotionally charged expectation, I am alone but steady. The invisible wind in the sails propelling the tiny vessel? It’s the deep healing work that I have pursued.

A sudden feeling threatens to overwhelm me as tears push at my eyes. Ah there it is. All I know is to close my eyes and fill my lungs to capacity with the semi-salty air. What do you need, love? I whisper. A quiet voice answers me like the tingling of a ghost: I want to touch the giant mountains. I want to jump into the river. I WANT TO SCREAM! I can feel a part deep inside of me heaving while I sit outwardly composed and quiet in the cool fall air, folded inward toward this full and complicated internal existence. 

I have chosen a path of solitude following the crushing weight of a tragic marriage. It comes with so many questions, so many aches and yet faithfully I choose it time and again.

We have a whole generation for whom the fairytale of romantic love has not yet (and may never) materialize. What now?

Marriage has long been seen as a status symbol and as a means to an end economically, spiritually and (especially) within family systems. Consider the many ways that partnering up can save a person on expenses alone: the cost of housing is cut in half when you share the expense with a life partner/spouse, insurance rates are higher per person when singled, and you’re more likely to be considered a financial risk in terms of financing, to name a few. We have created a system where the idea of a single person is often somehow synonymous with broken, isolated, selfish… A specific hushed sensation fills the air when someone’s long-term singleness is mentioned. Have you felt it?

At eighteen I didn’t exactly enter my marriage with a complete understanding of what marriage truly meant. Complications and red flags had already long before showed themselves, but I lacked the insight and support to explore what had been happening in that relationship. On the day of my wedding I found myself in many ways just playing the part, I couldn’t seem to give my resistance the voice she needed. A memory floats in with a hushed and incredulous sadness of that day; me in my white gown mere minutes after the ceremony looking for my person (who was not my new spouse) and wondering if he’d come take me away. I didn’t know then that I could save myself. Domestic violence, religious dogma and family of origin suffering had created the perfect storm for me to try and seek refuge in that young and treacherous marriage. I followed those rules to a T.

Marriage isn’t only about the financial gain. There is the sorrow of loneliness that asks to be quelled by partnering up too. Really consider how much suffering is circumnavigated by finding a match in proximity who will fill in that discomfort of long stretches of silence, that one who will always be your plus-one, a travel partner, someone to share the burden of everyday life with. Not wrong, but different.

A life of solitude is a different kind of challenge. While it’s not true for all singles, there is an increasing number of people finding themselves doing life solo after being wounded by relationship. Like me. I’ve been on a journey of late contemplating whether I’m single by choice or by brokenness. Where there seems to be strength in the first, I’ve got a little gremlin of a voice who wants me also to be very aware that I’m here by trauma too. I’ve been working it out in therapy A LOT.

Concerned with the validity of that gremlin who seems to be in stark contrast to my own true contentedness in choosing the solo life I find myself holding my singleness cupped gently in my outstretched hands. I timidly reveal it to my beloved therapist and ask her who is stronger, my contentment or my gremlin? Am I really here by choice? Or…am I too wounded to partner?

After a quiet minute she asks: what if we DO make decisions propelled by our wounds and what if, that too, is good? What if a life of solitude can be as deep and meaningful as the sorrow of watching the other path, the path of partnership, move further and further away? And what if being single IS fulfilling?

hmm. yeah, that. <Now contend>

What now? We normalize, we educate, we walk with tenderness.

That’s what.

We honor solo living as being a reasonable fulfilling life choice.

Just this week I tried to invite my loving aunt into my circle by whispering my feelings into words: I’ll likely never partner, I’m not looking forward to children, I’ve attained my dream job and am building my life around travel, friends, and family….Is, is this it? Is this, the never ending sunrise and sun-fall, the rest of my life until death?

When she said to me that she’d always envisioned growing old with her sister on the family land, that her sister was her person, it was a feeling that I understood. Tears sprang to my eyes as she asked: who’s your person? Who will you grow old with? I, too, have known the one I’d have called my person. The one I saw in every picture of my future. But he couldn’t stay there, he had to leave, I had to remove him.

I find myself grappling with what’s next, with how to cultivate the life I crave and being ok when my instant answer is this: My future is tending to the earth. It’s in my own children as they move into their forever and away from the nest we’ve created. It’s the animals who have and will come to me. My future is in these tangible loves combined with the family of friends I’ve chosen to come close to.

There is contentment here.

There is ache here too.

I think that’s the thing that as a single person I’m learning most: To be fully present to what is, to be aware of a hope that may yet not come. It’s a tender holding of both and, if that at all means anything to you, dear reader. To hold the space of perhaps, but not yet, and maybe even not ever. Contentedly.

xoxo, kimberly