hbd + happy anniversary

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.