Alone with a capital 'A'

Happy Valentine's!

Well, friends, it’s Valentine’s Day. The day I associate with Bridget Jones (even though the actual scene is set on NYE…), crying with a wine bottle on the sofa, lamenting singledom.

Even when I was with my ex-partner, I usually received a ‘happy commercialisation of love day’ text in the morning, or some flowers, but we generally agreed not to go too wild for it owing to financial constraints and our own personal rebellion against capitalism*.

*in reality, we’d both probably be slightly disappointed the other person hadn’t done anything, even though we said we wouldn’t.

I’m home alone in our new house (mine and my bff’s where we now live in LONDON at last), I have a pile of knitting from my new project next to me alongside a free book I got from work, just waiting to be read, and even though the house is a bit messy it looks lived in and it feels like home! Joy.

The only ‘happy Valentine’s’ I’ve got today was from my friend, and the flowers on the kitchen table are a week old. Any chocolate purchased is between me and Sainsbury’s, and quite frankly nobody else’s business. The only people I’ve spoken to today were from Scottish Energy, who spent ten minutes trying to convince me to switch provider, and that I shouldn’t look so scared when opening the door to strangers (it was a woman who told me this).

This year, Valentine’s Day feels very different, and way more monumental for me than it has before. It’s the first time since I was eighteen, that I am without partner. Properly, truly alone. And I’m smiling!

I’m going to make myself a butter chicken curry (ish from scratch), and then have chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert as a vaguely Valentine’s activity. Currently deciding between films to put on. It’s definitely going to be a fairytale. The question is: Mirror, Mirror, Beauty and the Beast (2017), or Cinderella (2015)?

After the film, I’ll write in my diary and go to bed, in a bedroom I don’t share, and fall asleep in the middle of the bed.

I wasn’t expecting to be this cheerful today.

Sitting in this exact same chair I have felt so existential, lost and sad since we moved in about a month ago. It’s been a huge change in a year of huge changes and I felt very battered by life, like a rollercoaster cart gone out of control and it’s all you can do to hold on by your fingertips, hoping a sudden jerk won’t spin you into hyperspace.

As well as coping with the upheaval, I’ve also felt really confused about romance.

I haven’t so much as looked at anybody else since my ex and I broke up, and in the last few weeks I’ve been putting pressure on myself – get over it, back onto a dating app, kiss somebody, anything! Turn the wheel, shake it up, etc.

But that would mean inviting somebody else into my life, and I can’t seem to get around the fact that I don’t want to do that. There is not presently room.

Besides, when I think about how I felt towards boys then (anyone who paid me attention was hot) versus now, I am (I hope) more discerning.

I also feel like there’s a lot of personal growth that needs to happen for me. I’d like to focus just on that for now.

So a brief Valentine’s message from me to say that if you too are Alone with a capital ‘A’, then it’s okay.

I personally have found the love of friends to be just as – if not more so – fulfilling than romantic love. Celebrate your singledom today however you see fit – with wine, a long bath, a potentially ill-advised panic download of Hinge, a dance, or a cry.

And if you have a someone you’re with today, I’m happy for you too. I hope they uplift you every day.

Me, alone but not really

PS: Ardent Airhead readers will recall my brief but eventful run-in with the drug-dealers / criminal empire of London. Well, I have news! Despite moving to a very different part of London, the crime seems to have followed me.

On several occasions, there has been a man in a mask on a bike cycling in circles on the street outside my new home, and today, right where I have seen him cycle-circle before, there was a dodgy-looking Sainsbury’s bag with ‘rubbish’ propped up next to the lamppost. At current count it’s still there, but if it’s gone tomorrow then I shall re-open an investigative case. Stay tuned!