So, I’m single now. And it dawned on me that most of my adult life had been spent in relationships. For the sake of clarity, I will define two terms, or at least how I intend for them to be understood: ‘adult life’ and ‘relationship’ I am only 20 years old, meaning I have not experienced a huge amount of ‘adult life’ so I don’t say I have spent most of it being in relationships to emphasis the length of time but rather the familiarity of it – it has been characteristic of my adult life thus far. So, I would say my adult life began when I started university – this was when my life drastically changed in terms of independence and freedom to essentially make my own decisions and in turn face the consequences of them. As for ‘relationship’ this is an unsuspectingly hard classification to make nowadays. As Drake put it: “We live in a generation of not being in love, and not being together, but we sure make it feel like we're together, because we're scared to see each other with somebody else” The term relationship is not as straight forwards as someone who you have formally agreed to being boyfriend/girlfriend with. I guess we all have our own clarifications, but I would say that a relationship is being in regular and frequent contact with someone, where it has been established by both of you that there is an attraction and a commitment to some degree to one another. In my short adult life, I have experienced almost the full spectrum, from a situation where we both liked each other and had discussed commitment but were never ‘official’ to being engaged to someone with the obvious direction towards marriage. And I would describe them all as relationships in some capacity. And now I find myself very single, a lot of questions and thoughts on the matter now sit with me – Do I want to be in a relationship? What’s enjoyable about being single and what’s not so enjoyable about being single? Do I thrive better in or out of relationships? How do I actually know how to be ‘single’? When I took the time to honestly reflect, it seemed logical to conclude that I did enjoy being in relationships, more than I do being single. This was a surprisingly difficult conclusion for me to come to, especially in this ‘men-are-trash-you-don’t-need-him’ generation and because I would describe myself as an independent female which is in my mind and perhaps in some of yours, is synonymous with being able to live a fulfilled single life, one where I don’t need a man to be happy. The thing is though, as of late, I constantly have love on my brain – the taste of love, the feel of love, the smell of love, the warmth of love…I think about lazy Sunday’s in bed, cuddling and talking about nothing, about someone missing me and adoring me in a way that they do no one else. And I consider…maybe I’m just suited to relationships – maybe I’m happiest in relationships. Then it occurred to me – that comfort does not mean happiness and equally a lack of comfort does not mean unhappiness. I was certainly comfortable/used to being in relationships, after all this was the state in which I’d spent most of my adult life and in (and in many respects, this did breed happiness). So then; this place I now find myself in, where I desire to be in a relationship may not be because I’m unhappy being single and is certainly not because I don’t love myself enough but perhaps just because I am uncomfortable being single – it’s not something I’m used to and so naturally something I will avoid (consciously and subconsciously) We are creatures of routine and comfort – we do things and crave things, sometimes because they make us happy but a lot of the time because they make us feel comfortable, the familiarity of them makes us feel safe and this is exactly the way addiction works. After a while, a substance, a thing, or a person does not even have to make you happy to get you to seek after it – it’s enough that at one point it did – the relationship drug. But like I touched upon before, what is comfortable is not necessarily what is best for us; contrary – there is often so much to be gained and enjoyed in the uncomfortable, in the unknown. Which reminds me of this quote… Why is it that people prefer known hells to unknown heavens? So, upon this realisation, I came to this conclusion – singleness isn’t necessarily bad for me and wanting a relationship is not an indicator that it is good for me.
I am determined to explore the treasures to be found in this ‘unknown heaven’, From now on, I will learn the rhythms of singleness like a samba or a waltz. I will look at myself in the mirror and be okay with knowing that today, someone may not call me beautiful but I still am. I will smile at quirky lines in books and movies instead of cute ‘Good morning beautiful texts’ I will go on dates and be okay with the fact that the guy sitting in front of me may be unimaginably boring or might make me laugh until I cry – I will be okay with the fact that I don’t know what he’ll order because he is new to me. I’ll ask a friend to go to that new fancy restaurant with me instead and take myself for coffee on winter afternoons. I’ll take myself to Paris and call it lovely. I will become comfortable with the uncomfortable. All my love Mayfair x
2 Comments
Cecilia
11/3/2017 02:24:07 am
Hi Mayfair
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Mayfair Ngondonga
11/3/2017 03:19:49 am
Thank you so much for your feedback Ma, that's so encouraging to hear! I'm really pleased it resonated with you. Much love
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