Just over a year ago, I watched a version of myself fade away as the current, single me emerged from her absence. I’ve had a lot of time to reacquaint myself with who I am and who I want to become. Throughout the last year, I’ve had more time to reflect on what my life has been like, what I want, and what I’ve learned. Whenever I think of the girl from last February, she is now a foggy, distant creature who no longer embodies me. As I write this, I remember her sadness that eventually became joy and laughter, and I write this reflection for her. I hope that if she could read this, she would see the sunlight past the storm, know what is waiting for her and be excited about it. With her in heart and mind, I introduce to you the reflection of my year of singleness. 

One thing about a breakup is that it brings you much closer to your friends. My friends sat with me through everything, and because of them, I could feel better as quickly as I did. They hosted the funeral, secured a fishbowl for me, and helped me make better decisions. I will be grateful for them forever and always. When I became single, I now had more time on my hands, and I spent it connecting and reconnecting with my friends again. I realized that the time I have with them is so precious. Now, I spend virtually all of my time with these girls, and I can’t believe I didn’t do this before. I realize the time I have with them is limited. One day, we’re all going to graduate and maybe split up, but our lives will never be how they are now. 

These girls will be part of my life forever. They are the ones who have been there for my best and worst days and make every day the furthest thing from boring. So when I think about bringing a boy into my life, they must be worth sacrificing that time for. It cannot and will not be just anyone taking time away from my friends, and they also have to be someone that can get on board with the wild things my friends and I do. Sometimes it’s disappointing to think about how I missed out on time with my friends because I was with someone who ultimately did not contribute to my life as my friends do. However, with any decision we make, it does no one any good to sit and ponder on their past but to create a better future with the knowledge we gather along the way. 

I also had more time to reconnect with and discover my passions and interests. I finished books that excited me in less than a week, which I had never had the time to do before. I started dabbling in fitness and building a gym schedule because all my time was for me now. But most importantly, I had the time to fall back in love with writing. The last year has been so pivotal for my relationship with writing. I became part of the MUSE family and found many other journals and publications where I could share my stories. Without becoming single, I fear my relationship with writing would not be as strong and beautiful as it is today. Perhaps it would’ve just been a light hobby with journaling to get through rough days, and I never would have been entirely happy with that. 

Today writing is my passion. It is what I want to spend my life doing, and a world without writing at the forefront is not one for me. Without loss, there is no space for the new, the growing, and the reborn to emerge. This reflection is not one of sadness, but of gratitude because of all the wonderful people and passions that have emerged into my life. 

Over the last year, I have become very aware and proud of my resilience and determination. There is nothing in this world that I cannot overcome, which includes breakups. I wasn’t perfectly fine the next morning and I wasn’t sprinting to parties with a bright, shiny smile, but I knew I would be okay one day and accepted that it would be a process. Resilience and determination are not about speed, but about setting a goal and achieving it wholeheartedly. I wanted to feel okay again on my terms, which is precisely what happened. In losing something I thought meant more, I saw my resilience blossom, and that actually meant so much more. I realized nothing meant to end actually ends; it transforms into something else, something meant to reward or teach us, and in this, I was rewarded with the resilience to last me a lifetime. 

The best lesson to follow up with is: sometimes it’s really not that deep. This breakup, nor any other one to follow, will ever be world-ending. I am only twenty years old, my life is only beginning, and it would be rather dull if I knew exactly how my life would play out. I was upset and hurt for a while, but I think I was also mourning familiarity, mourning the known and comfortable. I had to confront my discomfort with uncertainty and eventually embrace the changes coming into my life. I didn’t know what I was doing next or what the future looked like, and that was scary until I realized it was entirely out of my control. 

I realized change would be constant, sometimes expected, other times not, and I needed to accept that. Once I did, I realized this breakup had no severe, long-lasting negative impacts on my sense of self or the direction of my life, so it wasn’t that deep. I’ll always be okay, and everything ends up falling together perfectly in the end; that was just another falling piece in a grand and magnificent mosaic. 

When it comes to embracing the unknown and ever-changing emotions that come with a breakup, silence and space are critical to healing and becoming okay again. This was a time when becoming reacquainted with myself was important and shouldn’t have been clouded by apparitions of boyfriends past. With this breakup, I felt less jumbled than I had before. This healing process was so tranquil because I could go through it with the people who only wanted the best for me. I didn’t have constant reminders of this loss, but I had people and memories that helped make going through this change less challenging. In the past, there hadn’t been separation and silence, which made that old hurt create distrust in my own ability to be vulnerable again and to be okay with being hurt again. In the silence and separation of this breakup, I learned to appreciate that I could be okay with vulnerability and being hurt. I could appreciate that I could give the best parts of myself to someone, have that relationship not work out, and still end up alright. It was something the younger me thought could never happen, and in this, I showed her that it is possible to be okay in the end when someone hurts you, even though that hasn’t always been our story. This is probably the most memorable part of this breakup: in losing something, an old hurt healed over, and a younger version of myself can sigh in relief that we made it through. 

The last year has been a very special and memorable one. I am so lucky to experience a loss and see so many beautiful and meaningful things grow from it, myself included. This is not an experience everyone has, and it’s relatively new to me, too. Healing and reflecting will never look the same for everyone, but it hurts less when you’re with people who care for you and want to see you happy again. Whether it be my friends, my family, MUSE, or writing itself, they all were crucial to my healing and reflecting on this experience, this loss, and for me to create something beautiful out of it.