Single
It’s funny.
You think it’s over, you’re safe. You dare to pin your hopes down for a second. But try as you might, you notice the cracks in the wall. The drip of a pipe you just can’t place. Then you wake up to a draft and a wet floor. The pipe burst, the wall fell in. Everything is chaos-and you haven’t even had your coffee.
So you go and start the pot. You turn your back to it all, and try very hard not to think. You draw your robe around you a bit tighter. You pretend the squelch of your slippers isn’t there. The pot still works, thank the gods. As it gurgles, you press your fingers to your temples and rub. You take a deep breath and turn back around.
The mess is still there. Right where you left it. Through the hole in the wall, you see clouds start to gather like filthy cotton. Maybe you cry, maybe you yell. But there comes a moment of acceptance.
This is your life now.
Someone has to pick this mess up.
Being single-especially after a hard breakup? It’s a lot like that.
Today, I’d like to discuss finding myself as a bachelor again and why being single isn’t as bad as it seems. Let’s begin.
I Grow Old, I Grow Old
I spent the first four days crying.
I didn’t know what else to do.
They were gone, and the house was empty. I filled it the best I could. With music, with television, with the voices of my friends. But I still cried. When all else was silent, I filled the house with the sound of my own tears. But then came the fifth day. I opened my eyes to sunlight piercing through the blinds.My cats were curled at my sides for warmth. I reached down, and stroked their heads. They purred into my palm.
For the first time, I smiled.
I rose despite the protest of my back, and fed them. I glanced at the sink, full of dishes from depressive meals. I loaded the washer, and listened to it clatter. I gazed out the window over every acre I own. The sun painted the horizon in pastels as a breeze stroked the grass that dared to fight the chill.
I stood there for a while, not a thought stirring. I soaked it in.
I shuffled my way to the bathroom, and flipped on the light. I winced in the blinding glare of the LED bulbs, but pushed my eyes open still.
Saying I looked god awful would have been an understatement. I stood there in muggy clothes, a tattered black robe. An entire airport’s luggage haul surrounded my eyes. I wavered on my feet, and counted all the gray in my beard. The gray at my temples.
We’re not supposed to be like this.
The thought stirred from the back of my mind as I held my gaze. The man in the mirror was fat, old and worn out. He smelled of a dumpster behind a public restroom. And gods, that gray.
We’re not supposed to be like this.
We aren’t this.
The robe slipped from my shoulders. I didn’t even notice. The boxers and shirt I’d worn for days joined them. I was on autopilot the whole time-I didn’t even realize I was showering until the hot water hit hard as a slap. I blinked, and thoughts came clear for the first time in days.
This happened to us.
We’re alive.
The distilled essence of all I felt boiled down to those sentences. I washed and pulled the shower curtain back. The guy in the mirror looked a bit more familiar. Untamed, but me. I grabbed my razor, and trimmed. Losing myself in media had been an ineffective salve. But cutting my beard, my nails, feeling clean? That did the trick. I grabbed a suit jacket from my closet, a shirt and some jeans. I got dressed.
Then I went out for a drive.
The sun wasn’t high, but was at the point everything still looked pretty. I thought about everything that had happened to me in the last year. Dad’s passing, my grandmother. I thought about sitting in the church and my grandmother’s funeral, and looking out the window.
God, please. If you’re real, I can’t take anymore. I don’t know what I did, but I’m about out. Please, just take this from me. Take this weight. My heart can’t take anymore.
It was the only thought I had. I barely remember her funeral. I was already in the process of the break up by then.
I pulled over near this field I’d gone to my entire life. I got out, and sat on the hood of my car as I looked out. The wind was chilling, but the sun embraced me as it did all else on the earth. I sat there and watched, and just breathed. Another thought came to me in the long silence, one that brought a forgotten smirk to my face.
Fuck this.
The voice didn’t sound like mine-but that of the one I use when I record Splat Speaks. The Showman, all full of bravado and courage. A guy that could make you laugh and bring a tear to your eye. It boomed loud as thunder in my skull. I slipped from the hood of my car, and adjusted my blazer.
Nah. Fuck this, fuck pity. I’m a good man. I’m going to die a fucking great man. And I’m going to live in a way that makes their entire existence look like absolute dog shit.
The smirk didn’t fade then. It only grew wider on my face as I slipped back into my car, and revved the engine. I splattered mud and gravel as I peeled out and drove. I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t have a plan. But I knew, and that was enough. That day, I wrote. I produced audio. I applied for volunteer positions in my county, and got calls back. I took all the pain that had shackled me, and I put it to work.
I hit the weights like a fiend. More plates, more reps than I’d ever done before. I didn’t know it then, but I was starting to heal. That guy in the mirror, the one that had looked so damn tired and old?
He was a fucking lie. Depression rearing its head and trying to take me. I was just about in it’s maw, too. Then came that damn smirk.
With that also came the outpouring of support from my friends. From my family. From people that love and believe in me, without qualm. Without a thought. They embraced me and told me I was all I knew, in my heart, I was. The gleaming teeth of my depression got blunted in the armor of their passion.
I say all of this not to garner pity (gods, spare me). Rather, I mention all of this to illustrate a detail of both breaking up and being single-This is only temporary. The pain, the solitary and quiet hours, they don’t go on forever. Nothing truly does. It’s been a month since it happened, and the smile I give others feels genuine. I find myself eager again, as eager as I was when they were in my life.
I cracked. We all cracked.
But I didn’t break.
And neither will you.
The Truth Of Isolation
When you’re single, when you’re going through a break up?
It’s easy to feel like you’re alone. That you did something wrong, and as penance you’re paying for it in solitude.
Allow me to be perfectly clear-that’s a load of shite.
Our species is a social one. We’re not meant to be alone. Hell, every major tech revolution in the last decade has been geared towards connecting. What’s keeping you in your bed with the covers pulled high is grief and depression. Both are a perfectly normal response to what’s happened. But don’t assume, even for a moment, that you are ever “alone”.
The first four days I didn’t want to talk about what happened. I was processing it, and trying my best to make light of it all. I stayed in bed, the cathode rays of my television flickering over my unblinking eyes.
Then a friend messaged me. They just wanted to talk. They knew something was up, but wanted to give me space. It was enough to pull me out of my funk, and get me talking. Then came another friend, and another. By the end of the night, I was on voice chat and openly talking about what happened. Pulling it out of my head and heart, it made me realize I was loved. It didn’t matter if they were five minutes or five million miles. People where there. They cared.
I wasn’t alone, even in the slightest.
Grief, and our feelings surrounding it, are normal. But if a friend reaches out, take their hand. Hold it. Breathe deep, and know you’re truly never alone. If you smack that hand away, if you deny it, if you don’t respond to those messages? The furthest you’ll ever go is the room you find yourself in.
As the pain ebbed away, realizations came. I was free. I was able to spend my time (the only finite resource we truly have), any way I wanted. My gods, I could take myself out to my favorite diner! I could watch any movie I wanted to! If I wanted to stay up until five AM beating my dick and watching anime, I COULD!
More importantly, I could spend my time with who I wanted. I didn’t have to worry about anyone giving a snarky comment because I was on discord too late. I didn’t have to deal with constantly worrying why my partner was depressed and not speaking to me. I. Was. Free.
Which brings me to a very, very valid point: There’s nothing inherently wrong with being single. Especially when we accept that we’re never alone. Friends, family, lovers and more surround us in an ocean of care. All relationships involve a degree of compromise. I’d given quite a bit of myself in an unequal exchange because care had clouded my logic.
If you enjoy being independent? If you enjoy spending your time, resources and more your way?
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with not having a partner or partners. Freedom in of itself can be intoxicating and liberating. For the first time in years I feel like I can breathe, and I’m drunk on every breath.
And if I need someone? If I need a voice in the long, dark hours?
I just have to pick up my phone.
Breakups and being single aren’t without their trials and difficulties. Some days are far easier than others. But we’re neither alone in our pain or joy. We’re always, always in a place of love. From friends, from family, from our own mind.
Be well deviants.
I love you.