Time is weird. At this life stage, what feels like ten years ago was actually twenty years ago. The years ticks by at ever increasing speed, and those days of your twenties where it felt like you had all the time in the world to travel, build a career, meet someone, get married and have kids all by the time you’re 30 (or at a push 35) become an ever more distant memory. That’s the thing with time; it tricks you into thinking it will always be on your side. I used to think at the start of each year ‘maybe this will be the year I meet someone…’. But now that is usually accompanied with a hollow laugh and an inner eye roll. I know it’s Valentines week and we’re all meant to be celebrating lovely love, but I am 42 and single and I am allowed by cynical.
I’ve written plenty about how hard it can be to be single in a world that assumes a two. It is economically challenging, socially challenging and can be extremely emotionally challenging. It is six years since my last long term (ish) relationship; that’s a long time to be swiping, that’s alot of disappointing dates, that’s alot of time watching other people find their person. It’s hard not to feel like a permanent spectator to other peoples happiness. Every engagement, every wedding, every pregnancy announcement, every new baby brings up a mess of emotions. While I am always truly delighted for the people involved, I increasingly feel like it will never be me making the announcement. I will always be the one celebrating and never be the one being celebrated. I used to go to weddings and wonder about what mine would be like, I used to hold babies and think about how amazing it would be to hold my own baby.I realized recently while holding a mega cute baby that somewhere along the line I stopped having these thoughts. I guess with time they became too painful.
One of the hardest things about being single over 40 is how blurry the lines become between not having a partner, and not having children. I always assumed I would meet someone and eventually have kids with them. That’s what most (not all) people were around me were doing for the last 10 years or so, albeit not in the same order or at the same time. I figured the pieces would eventually fall into place for me, because why wouldn’t they? Multiple factors including break ups, precarious housing, and a global pandemic slowly ate away at the years and the pieces remained scattered. In my 20s, none of us were talking about fertility or freezing eggs, it was the last thing on our minds, even if any of us had the money to do anything about it. Plus I for one was full sure it would all work out, in time. Months became years became decades and here I am, the other side of 40, single and childless, fitting into none of the boxes that society creates for us. Single and 30 is ok, single and 40 and there must surely be something wrong with the poor craytur. When deciding to end a long term relationship in my mid 30s, I thought about a future with the possibility of not meeting someone, and of not having children. I knew it might happen, and I was ok with it because I was making the right decision for me at that time. But honestly, while I thought I might be single, or I thought I might be childless; I never really thought I would be both.
It is not easy to find your person. It is not easy to find connection and chemistry and shared values. It is not a matter of looking in the right places, or waiting for the right time, or ‘not expecting it’ (the least useful advice you could possibly give a single person in their 40s FYI). It is not easy to find trust and kindness and honesty, and to find someone who handles your feelings with the care they deserve, someone who is gentle with your wounds. I know well who I am, I know I am a great (albeit humanly flawed) partner, and I know it is not me. But as the years tick by, the question lingers – so why isn’t it me? Why does it feel like everyone else got on the train while I somehow ended up left on the platform?
I have travelled on three continents on my own, I go camping and hiking on my own, I bought my own house entirely on my own, I live alone, I go to cafes and restaurants alone, I go on holidays alone. But independent and tough as I may be, the little things do stack up. It is exhausting consistently being the only single person at a party, wedding or family event. Saying ‘no, no,it’s just me’, getting charged a single supplement, consuming media that consists nearly entirely of stories or portrayals of families and couples. Looking around a restaurant and realising everyone else there is in a couple or group. Never being able to say ‘we’, never having someone there to make a bit of a fuss of you for your birthday or a promotion, having no choice but to be your own comfort. Carrying a heart bursting with love and having nowhere to put it. Puttingyour key in the front door and knowing there is no one on the other side. Quieting the panicked voice that whispers ‘ Is this it….forever?’. Wondering who would notice if you fell and knocked yourself out in the shower. Wondering who will look after you and hold your hand when you’re old.
It is a regular occurrence for me to be in a work meeting where the pre-meeting chit chat revolves around children and partners. I can’t participate in these conversations, they feel like a club that I am not a part of. It’s not that I don’t expect people to talk about their children and partners, and I often love hearing the stories, but it is a weird and isolating feeling. As the years pass, I watch peoples lives shift, change, grow. I celebrate them falling in love, I go to weddings and look at wedding photos, I marvel at their growing pregnant bellies, I laugh at baby videos, I sympathize at toddler or teenager antics. I smile as their lives move while it feels like mine is standing still. It’s like watching an endless reel of other people building the kind of life you would have liked for yourself.
Relationships are hard, they can be lonely, they can be frustrating, and, of course, they can end. They are not a guarantee of happiness. Parents are super heroes, I am not romanticising the reality of parenting. I would never deny the reality and complexity of someone elses’s journey. I would never resent someone else’s happiness. It might give me a twinge of sadness,, but I never resent it (unless they’re a dick, but thankfully there’s not many of them in my life :-)).
Dating is hard and it can be exhausting and frustrating. It is hard to stay hopeful, to stay kind, to stay open, to not let the cycles of hope and disappointment grind you down. I spent a long time learning to be comfortable in my own skin, to recognise and embrace who I am and to see what I want and what I deserve. I have put in the time and the leg work, both in terms of working on myself and ‘putting myself out there’ with the drudgery of swiping and awkward dates (with the odd great date sprinkled in there, to be fair). I have put in the mileage and let me tell you, I am exhausted. Waiting for someone to see your sparkly stuff and want to hold onto it with both hands is exhausting. Have I mentioned being exhausted? Because I am. So. Damn. Exhausted.
I feel like I’ve written a version of this piece so many times over the years. It’s like an annual homage to being single, a marker that yup, it is still just me. It’s not what I would choose, but it’s where I am. It’s ok to be cynical, it’s ok to be sad, it’s ok to feel lonely and frustrated, it’s ok to know I am fine on my own while also wishing that it were different, it’s ok to want to love and be loved. So for all my fellow single folk, solo folk, uncoupled folk, whatever you want to call it, and whatever your story has been so far – I see you. I think you’re gorgeous and amazing and strong as fuck and I see your sparkly stuff.
Cosa Siúlacha 