In the winter of 2018 I turned 31, and in the same week left my long term relationship. Left the apartment, the car, the stability, the knowing, the company. I spent the next while in a flux of old to new.
The old…a place of comfort in a new city. We had recently moved to Toronto and everything was unknown except each other.
The new…was everything. Being alone. Sleeping on couches. Trying to find where the hell I wanted to go (both literally and figuratively). For awhile I looked after a friend’s cat, which gave me a respite from sleeping on friend’s couches and invading their lives.
this time cat sitting was the first time i had ever lived alone, and the first time i had been physically alone in years. at one point i realized i hadn’t spoken to another human in 10 days.
I started to realize other things, too, in this silence. Small habits that changed. The amount of space I started to take up, in comfort. I had not been comfortable in my space, and in myself for some time.
Within a year of these events I found a new place to live, and settled in. I started taking care of things other than myself - plants, friend’s pets. And I soon found myself turning one year older, one year from that place of blowing everything up and sitting in the remains. I threw a party for the ocean of people who had kept me afloat. The next day i woke up, alone. and it felt perfect.
