Some people say they’ve found peace in being single and that they never want for anything. Good for them, but my peace is a little less perfect and a little more human. Most days I’m fine rolling solo but sometimes the desire for partnership carries me away. It’s a daily battle, but more often than not, I find nuggets of peace and acceptance while making room for the desire to be partnered.
- Peace isn’t perfect, but it blesses me with its presence. The desire to have a partner is a strong one. It’s partly biological, the need to find a suitable mate, but it’s also mental and spiritual. This desire never really goes away, but peace graces me with its presence to ease the ache of loneliness. I never have perfect peace because I’m a human being, but I’m grateful that I have peace at all.
- I definitely still yearn for a partner. Some days, I’m completely desperate for romantic love and other days, it’s just a quiet desire. The yearning and desiring don’t negate the fact that I have peace because peace isn’t perfection or complete absence of any desire — it’s a delicate human balance. What’s different today is that my yearning no longer consumes me.
- I’m open to the possibility. Even though most days I have peace around the fact that I’m alone, I’m still open to the possibility that someone could come into my life. Peace hasn’t totally closed me down, it’s just given me a sense of being okay whether or not I find a partner. Still, I definitely keep my ears and eyes open as I’m going through my life.
- I’ll probably never stop desiring a partner. Just because I have peace doesn’t mean the desire has fully gone away. I’m not a perfect saint who has reached utter peace alone. Instead, I have mostly moments of being content by my lonesome while I also have scattered moments of deeply desiring to be with someone. The cool thing about being a human is that I can hold both of these seemingly opposing truths.
- The fact that I want a partner doesn’t negate my acceptance of being single. There’s this thing called dialectics where two things can be true that seem to negate one another. I can both have peace and acceptance about being single much of the time while also desiring a partner. I guess the difference is that the desiring of a partner no longer runs my whole life. It’s just present amongst the peace.
- Having peace waxes and wanes. I said that having peace is imperfect because I’m a human being. What I mean by that is that it’s there most of the time, but sometimes it disappears and I’m left flailing again. The good news is that the peace always seems to find its way back into my life and the obsessive desire usually lessens into something more manageable.
- I live my life fully regardless of my relationship status. Even when peace is coming and going, I’m living my life. That’s probably why it keeps visiting me because I don’t give up on myself. I’ve gotten comfortable with being in a relationship with myself regardless of whether someone else is around or not. I still live my life to the fullest to the best of my abilities.
- I know my life is complete without someone else. Even on the days where I’m stuck obsessing about having a partner, I still know that my life is complete as it is now. This may be why peace keeps returning to me — because I hold onto this fact that I’m okay alone no matter how I feel. On my hard days, I keep reminding myself that I’m okay here and now.
- I no longer feel I need a partner to be okay. I used to desperately feel like I needed a partner to feel okay in my own skin. Today, I know that no other human can make me feel okay because I already am okay. I sometimes get caught up in the delusion that another person will complete me, but it’s quickly replaced with the reality that I don’t need fixing – I’m already whole.
- Acceptance is a choice I make every day. Different sides of my mind go back and forth about what’s true, but over and over again I choose the side that speaks acceptance. I choose the side that tells me that another person won’t fix me, it’s totally okay to be single, and it’s also okay to want for a partner without letting that desire consume me. I choose to accept where I’m at and that is where I find my peace.
