HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LIL HYDRANCHULA
the hydranchula is one year old today. while she has gone
through some name and aesthetic changes in the last 12 months, she has turned
into the hydranchula i always hoped she would be.
thank you so much to anyone who reads and has encouraged me
to keep writing. without your support, i’m not sure i would keep writing this
blog. i appreciate you more than i could ever say or write down in this blog.
i want to give special thanks to some special people: to my
mom for birthing me and telling me i’m awesome even when i’m being a terror, to
the girlfriends who are more of anti-girlfriends, kaily and alyssa, who would i
be without you two? and the girlfriends i never expected: lara and morgan,
thank you for teaching me to hug and to sing, and thank you to will for being
someone who gets me.
sorry for the hiatus; i’m back.
in the middle of the summer, i found myself single for one
whole year.
the last time i was single for longer than one year, i was
14 years old.
in a year of singlehood, i’ve figured out a lot of shit
about my life and life in general.
here it is:
breaking up with someone you love sucks. breaking up with
someone you love because you know it will be better for your individual lives
sucks even more.
there is a moment in your post-breakup life where you
realize you’re really not getting back together. it wasn’t a fluke. you said
the words, he accepted them, it’s been a few weeks, and you’re still not
talking.
there is another moment when you realize that you’re really
done. once you’ve realized you’re not getting back together, this moment comes.
you’ll never get married, you’ll never have kids together, you’ll never get the
dog you’ve already named.
those moments are really difficult to swallow. regardless of
the relationship’s length. it’s not just the person you fall in love with. you
fall in love with route it takes to get from your door to theirs, whether it
takes 45 minutes or three hours. you love his mom and his dog and knowing which
drawer in his kitchen the spoons live in.
a really terrible moment is when you realize that you
probably shouldn’t see each other anymore. and you probably shouldn’t sleep
together anymore, either… because you broke up.
a terrible but exciting moment is the day that you decide to
start sleeping with other people. an equally terrible but humbling moment is
the day you decide he could start sleeping with other people, and your
knowledge of this doesn’t bother you.
this moment is also kind of happy because it means he is moving
on, and you know how difficult that is, so you’re happy for him because being
broken up sucks.
there is this moment when you realize how great it is to be
by yourself. and there is another one shortly after that when you realize how
great it is to be you.
there’s a moment when you realize how great it is to focus
your energy on having relationships with women. i have never had more female
friends in my entire life than i do right now. while this frightens me, i have
never felt more uplifted, empowered or loved by others than i do now.
at some point, i realized how lucky i was to have freedom to
do anything that i wanted. i kind of hate saying this, because it means that
being in a relationship is the opposite of freedom to do whatever you want. i don’t
think that is always the case, but being in a relationship means losing some of
my selfishness. being in a relationship means that i choose to put someone else
before me in some cases.
being single for a year has allowed me to do a really
wonderful thing: start this blog. the hydranchula is my like one of my best
girlfriends. she’s given me the confidence to write about things that i might
have otherwise deemed too personal or private. she is one of my new favorite
things about myself.
and there is no better feeling than finding your voice.
