It was hard. Seeing your best friend get married. Watching another propose. Hearing, over and over again, the refrain of ‘you’ll meet the right person someday.’ ‘He wasn’t right for you.’ It is hard to know that in the divergence of young adult experiences, you have taken the road without a partner, without children, at least not now. You will be amongst the 30-somethings who go travelling and have adventures. You’ll share tidbits of your life with your married friends, who will kiss each other’s foreheads as they clear plates and smile at you, grateful for a crumb of excitement, grateful for their calm, steady life.
What was harder was admitting this was something you ever wanted. You have pushed this down since you were a child. After watching countless divorces, being the one to find out about the cheating, seeing her throw his clothes down the stairs, the strange texts on his phone. The refrains of, ‘we don’t need a son, we have you,’ the one who carried the heavy things and climbed the rickety ladder to fix the bulbs before your brothers grew up and eventually replaced you. The lectures from aunts and grandparents about focusing on yourself, building your career, following your own heart, the way they didn’t. After being inculcated with their regrets, knowing how important it was to forge your own destiny because you had the means and the support. All the things they didn’t have. You knew better than to hope for it.
And still, you wanted it. You wanted it this whole time. Someone to sweep you off your feet. Open the cupboard door that you had sequestered yourself within. You’d hoped for someone, not to save you, but to find you. To see you there. You’d wanted someone to offer their hand to you, so badly, and you thought for a moment that this might have been it. He saw you and pursued you. You never had to ask ‘what this was.’ He made it clear. Even offered a choice to you: friends, friends with benefits, or romance. And you decided to take his hand.
You opened yourself up to the notion of children, which perhaps you had also wanted all this time. You moved in with him. Slowly, at your own pace, but you did eventually pack up your apartment of 5 years, the one you loved so much, to move into his dim, ground floor flat. You bought crockery together and rearranged the living room. Grew to tolerate his cat. Cooked together. Shared a bedroom.
You really believed it. Even though the sex was nonexistent. Even though the house wasn’t what you wanted. Even though you lived increasingly distant lives. Even though some spark in you was beginning to dim. He was the one who let you go. Who brought up that it wasn’t working, that you weren’t compatible. And that embarrassed you even more: that you hadn’t seen it first. After a month of thinking about it, you saw it too: the complacency, the way you let him take care of you like a child, the rejection you felt every time the kiss you initiated with him turned into a full stop, your frustration at his lack of dreams, of passion.
It was humiliating, It was humiliating that you wanted this, and you tried, and you were the one who wasn’t wanted. That’s what the child in you said. The adult knew that this was for the best. That he was right, and that your aunt was right, that it was better to part now while there were no children, that it was less complicated. It didn’t make packing up your home any easier. Didn’t make pressing the key back into his palm any less hard.
You always knew how to rebuild. The flat you moved into was perfect: in a new place, but with enough resonance of your first flat in London to comfort you. Docklands, wood floors, old build by the water. You made up your room with new skills you’d learned from him. Installed a shower head, curtains, bought a rug woven in Morocco. You filled the freezer with marinated meat, learned how to fix things, made fast friends with your new flatmate, hosted dinners, brought new lovers into your bed.
But you avoided acknowledging what it was you wanted. And that delayed things. Made it hard, because you weren’t facing the root of your healing. You didn’t want to look at it. You really, really didn’t want to acknowledge the thing you have pretended was stupid this whole time in an effort to defend yourself. Because to admit that you wanted it, a partner, in spite of all the evidence that you have seen in your short life, would be some kind of ingratitude to the wisdom of the women who raised you. Would be illogical. Would be futile. Because you also have always believed you could never have these things. So what would be the point in wanting them anyway? In the unlikelihood of love, who could ever spot you?
You always knew how to hide. Or rather, how to defend. When you were five, your aunt found you in the cupboard, your parents’ shouts muffled by the wooden door. You had a stack of picture books nearby, some toys, a radio. You waved her inside, told her to sit next to you. They’d be done fighting soon.
-
I have always known how to protect myself. I don’t need anyone to save me. But I do want to be witnessed. All love is is seeing someone. Observing them. Noticing them. The way I write has always been about love. Seeing the things in the world that other people don’t see. Writing, like loving, at its heart is about paying attention.
In the books, the heroine must be brave. She must take her brokenness and turn it into her strength. She must be willing to be seen again. I, who have been batting away well meaning advice and the love of my friends, have been unwilling. I haven’t wanted to look at myself. Because it’s felt shameful to admit that I want to be loved. I want to be seen.
Strangers, new acquaintances, have offered hands. I have used kindness as a means of pushing them back: ‘thank you for this lovely message.’ ‘I appreciate you reaching out, it means so much.’ And offering no vulnerability, just the words a nurse might use, which she has used on a thousand patients before. I was irritated. They were asking to see the wound. I wanted to be feral in a corner. It is the way I know how to handle things. And no one can break my heart if I keep it broken. There is no risk of being seen—and then loved, promised to, disappointed, discarded— if I stay in the corner.
I am a writer. I have read this storyline a thousand times. The heroine must be brave. She must be brave. She must put the heart back together and hold it out again. Because apparently, that is life. I am indignant that I am part of a storyline that is so common. That this pain is not unique, this narrative is not new, that nothing about it is romantic in any way. It’s just sad. And I’m annoyed that I know exactly what I have to do, which is to open the door, and allow myself to be seen.
This annoyance is also a defense. I have spent so long being inhuman. Denying my wants. Constantly on guard. Protective, and composed, and methodical, in some ways, about my approach to love. I have so many rules about relationships, both romantic and platonic. Things must progress slowly. Trust is earned, not deserved. What people do matters more than what they say.
Whether I’ve followed these rules, or not, I’ve gotten hurt regardless. I don’t think there is anything I can actually do to defend myself in love. What will happen will happen. All I can do is get up off the floor with.a huff, and begin to pick up the pieces. I always knew how to rebuild.
And I know I will again.