My Inner ‘Single Girl’ Has a Life of Her Own

Posted by admin on May 11, 2023

I’ve always been something of a serial monogamist.

I was engaged for the first time at 19 — it didn’t take. I have lived with no less than three long-term boyfriends and my relationship resume is extensive. I’ve been through virtually every kind of relationship imaginable — the good, bad, and very ugly.

During my “dating years,” I have been single for a collective total of roughly three months. Does that seem like a small number for a woman in her early 40s? It seems to be suffocatingly small to me. I’ve just never really done the “single girl” thing — I’m a pro at messy relationships, though.

And my inner “single girl” self? She’s an antsy gal.

Relationships and the City

I, like so many women my age, enjoyed watching Carrie Bradshaw and her gaggle of gal pals explore single life and love in the big city. It was our guilty pleasure — and sometimes, our own pain personified.

I knew women like Carrie. I still do. They are mysterious, magical creatures to me.

How does one merely not date the men she meets? I know that personally, I couldn’t resist. I was a thirsty vagrant being brought to water anytime there was a somewhat available man looking for a woman to mess up emotionally.

Okay, I’m being dramatic — it wasn’t all bad. But I still managed to throw myself into abusive, toxic relationships time and time again, and for what? A few years of heartache? More wrinkles and gray hairs than what hardly seemed fair?

Eventually I got married and put it all behind me, but one simple fact lingers — my inner single girl is still hungry for the single life I spent decades starving her of.

Water, water, everywhere

This article is not some kind of lame confessional. I’m faithful to my husband and I don’t want to go “elsewhere,” if you know what I mean. Who has the energy for such shenanigans, anyway?

But, every once in a while, on very quiet nights when I’m going through one of my debilitating bouts of insomnia, I find myself online, perusing studio apartment rentals all over the globe.

I’m not moving. I have no reason to do so and my 4-person family wouldn’t fit into one of those glorified closets — but those apartments aren’t for that family. Those apartments are the whimsical dreams of my dying single self.

She never had that single lifestyle. She didn’t get to experience nights alone or the freedom of buying whatever she wanted, even if it meant less food for a week or a late rent payment. She didn’t get to experience travelling in gorgeous solitude or treating herself to entire cakes just for her on quiet nights in her cozy-but-quiet apartment.

As she withers away in my memory, she yearns for a taste of that laissez-faire life she was robbed of. Her dreams still flicker brightly at my loneliest hour.

It’s a life I’ll never live; a life I respectfully mourn.

A Dream Not Achieved

Before I got married and had my dream family, I had a different kind of dream.

It went something like this: graduate university with a plucky, go-getter attitude. Move to a city that is so far removed from anyone in my acquaintance that visiting would be a once-a-year thing — if that. Rent a tiny apartment, preferably one with a little balcony that I could fit a perfectly aged, vintage bistro set on.

I would work independently or possibly for a small, cozy publication, where my writing was appreciated by a quaint enough audience that my life could remain simple, while also making enough to fill my walls with built-in bookshelves that would house beautiful hardcover copies of my favourite books. I would be a plant mom and a novelist, too.

In this fantasy, I would have just enough cash to buy a fresh pastry every morning and a fancy coffee with whipped cream on Tuesdays. I would have enough free time to walk along the city’s little green pathways, watch the ducks and their fuzzy ducklings splash around in the pond and smile at children playing in the park.

I would fall asleep at night with the curtains open so that I could stare up at the city lights and maybe get a glimpse of the moon every now and then; I would wake to orangey sunlight streaming through my window.

I would drive an old Beetle and wear thrifted clothing from another time. I would be single and date when it suited me, but I would never settle down with a man and change my lifestyle one little bit.

That was the dream I had before I fell in love and my dreams changed significantly.

Now, I’m living a different kind of dream — a better dream, at least, for me. Now, I change many diapers and know all the words to The Finger Family. I willingly clean my own house and make our meals and it brings me true joy. I look forward to snuggling my babies before bedtime, and before I lay down my own head, I sneak into their rooms and steal one last snuggle as they sleep peacefully unaware.

I watch the latest binge-worthy drama with my husband curled up on the couch as I eat my ice cream; we snuggle under one blanket. We take walks together with the kids after supper as the sun lazily settles into the horizon.

We have a nice little life. We have a life I never knew I’d always wanted. And it doesn’t align with my inner single girl’s wishes.

She’s dying, and that’s okay.

Small but painful blips

Every once in a while, I get caught up in the “what ifs.”

It’s no surprise, really — my dating life is chock full of utter regret. I’ve hurt people badly; I’ve downright destroyed a few worthy hearts. I’ve had my own heart torn to shreds, too. I’ve stayed with people for years longer than I should have because of fear.

I’ve spent far too much time living in fear.

I may be settled happily, but I’ve given my life to my family. Every single thing I do is for them — I love them, so it’s not like it’s not okay.

But that inner single girl still pops up from time to time to poke me and say, “Remember me? I matter too.”

And it’s painful. Mostly because she never had a chance to thrive and what that really means is that she never had a chance for personal growth. There was no “finding myself” in my youth; no solo vacations just for the hell of it. There was almost always someone waiting in the wings; someone wanting something from me that, often, I simply couldn’t give.

Living your life for your relationships — at least, those before marriage — are draining. Those relationships take a little more out of you each time, and soon you’re left with detached, discarded pieces that no one wants. And you know what?

That shit really hurts.

…

Years ago I wrote this little piece on not feeling whole:

The older I get, the more I think that relationships are a lot like war wounds. They leave you with PTSD, sometimes — often, probably. They leave their mark on your soul. Maybe you escape unscathed physically but emotionally, you’re rocking back and forth in the corner as you sing Tom Jones’s songs.

(In no way am I minimizing the pain that so many of our soldiers experience — it’s just an observation from someone trying to figure life out.)

My inner single girl knows my wounds well. She knows the cure, too — or, at least, she knows the salve. She knows what would soothe my injured little soul.

A life of solitude in a big city where little ol’ me would be forgotten about. Where I could sit and eat my pastry in peace as I watched people around me living their glorious lives. Maybe it would be lonely — but my heart would be so safe.

It’s all moot anyway, though. That’s not my life now. I have two babies who make my soul soar. They are my world. I have a husband I love (and yes, sometimes he’s insufferable, but so am I) and who loves me back. I have a home and a family and a small group of wonderful friends and a church and a community. I am so very blessed.

I’m sad for my inner single self. She shows herself less and less as time moves forward, and I know she’ll disappear one day. I’ve always struggled with letting go, and she’s that last little piece of my former life that clings on for dear life.

And as for dreams, not all of our dreams come true — and that’s okay. I didn’t live my dream but as I look at my son playing with his wooden tool set in the corner as he talks to his toy trucks, while my daughter and husband are playing chess together in the other room? I have a new kind of peace and contentment that I had no idea existed.

I’m living my new dream, and there isn’t a studio apartment in the world that could drag me away.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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