Single, happy and lonely as hell.

+ part-time lover girl, part-time emotional wreck.

Photo by Ed Robertson on Unsplash

Hello, my loves!

This past week has been a rough one. Nothing dramatic. Just one of those weeks where the pressure is on at work, the kids seem extra ratty, and for some reason the local authorities decided to personally attack my mornings with peak-hour roadworks at three separate points along my daily commute.

(No but seriously. WHY do they do that?)

I also started a new job mid-week, so after being chewed up and spat out in my old job Monday to Wednesday, Thursday and Friday served up awkward meet-and-greets with a side of imposter syndrome.

Good times.

But being a strong, independent, resilient woman, I of course handled all of this like a champ.

On the outside.

Yep. On the outside I was an absolute gun. I rolled with every punch like a seasoned pro in a gorgeous corporate suit. You know that scene in every American legal drama where the elevator doors open on a powerful, smart, appropriately-sexy-for-an-office woman and she struts toward the boardroom in a way that is both terrifying and mesmerising?

Okay, well picture a slightly less cool version of that.

That was me this past week.

On the outside.

On the inside? Different story.

I met a close friend for a mid-week coffee and blubbed into my long black.

I lost my mind after school drop-off one morning, waved goodbye to my kids, then pulled into a side street for twenty minutes trying to reset my nervous system before crying my way through peak hour.

At one point, during a work disaster I was partially responsible for, I shut my laptop, turned off my phone and left the building entirely. Sitting on the ground in the carpark, I briefly considered whether I could just get in my car and drive off into the hills.

Short version: my nervous system took an absolute beating and by Friday I was completely cooked.

I wanted nothing more than to collapse in a heap with a glass of wine and a comfort meal.

Except I couldn’t do that.

I had to get to the shops for a birthday present. I had sixteen loads of washing to get through before the weekend. I had snacks to pack for an early morning playdate. And before you tell me I should have parked all of that and taken care of myself (excellent advice, to be fair), this is where it becomes glaringly obvious that I am single.

There is no other adult in my house to share this load. I do not have a live-in practical or emotional support human.

And look, it isn’t often that I, an otherwise happily single woman, feel the man-shaped hole in my life with such force. But occasionally, like during this past week, it hits me like a tonne of bricks.

This is all. on. me.

And I have never felt lonelier.

Let’s get into it, shall we?

Ugh. The loneliness void. My least favourite part of being single.

Because for all the joys of being an untethered woman in her forties who gives almost zero fucks anymore, loneliness still gets me from time to time.

Loneliness at this stage of life is a funny old thing. Long gone are the days where I wish I had someone to take me to dinner or go to the movies with. That stuff is nice and all, but have you ever taken a book to a bar and enjoyed a glorious glass of wine while reading about hot dragon riders banging each other?

Elite.

No, the loneliness I feel these days tends to arrive after periods of emotional heavy lifting. Weeks where I have to hold everything together on my own. Weeks where what I really want is someone who knows me intimately to look at me and say: “Hey. I’ve got you.”

That kind of loneliness feels less like missing a person and more like grieving a kind of care I stopped believing in somewhere during my divorce.

Like a casualty of war.

Like a necessary evil.

And sometimes, if I’m being really honest? It feels like punishment.

Punishment for finally reaching a place where I no longer accept mediocrity in love. For saying no to men who would happily fill the role of boyfriend, but only if I agreed to abandon myself in the process. For dragging my standards out of the gutter and learning how to hold boundaries, even as a hopeless romantic.

Is this kind of deep loneliness just the price we pay for placing a high value on our own love?

Maybe.

Does it still suck balls sometimes and make me wonder whether I could overlook emotional immaturity if the trade-off was someone bringing me coffee in bed every morning?

Also maybe.

Just FYI for anyone who needs to know: coffee in bed is my love language.

The subtle ways loneliness creeps in when you’re single and happy.

1. Having to self-regulate your emotions all the time

This is the hardest one.

The practical stuff I can do. Sure, it’s a pain in the ass having to take the bins out every single week, but I can handle that.

What gets me is how exhausting it is to constantly regulate my own nervous system.

I spend a significant amount of my life helping small children keep their shit together, then somehow I’m expected to also manage my own emotional reactions in a healthy and evolved way?

Feels like a rip-off.

Sometimes I need a three-hour cuddle.

Sometimes I want to lie horizontal while someone brings me tea and cookies.

Sometimes I want someone who knows me deeply enough to recognise the signs of burnout before I lose my mind and gently suggest a walk or a hot shower.

And honestly? Sometimes I just want a grown-up who loves me to tell me I look pretty and give me a little kiss on the forehead.

Am I wrong?

The upside is that I’ve become incredibly good at not needing much from anyone. I can turn a frown upside down with the speed of an ex liking my Instagram story. I understand this is probably a healthy quality and likely makes me a better friend, parent and romantic partner.

But fuck me.

I’m exhausted.

I don’t want to have to do it all. the. time.

2. No debrief buddy

I talk to myself a lot.

Now, I’ve read this is a sign of genius, so obviously I’m not disputing that. But I’m not gonna lie. Sometimes I’m sick of having to process life entirely alone.

From affirmations to pep talks to journalling to long post-social-event monologues in the car, I miss having someone to debrief with. Someone to bounce my reactions off. Someone to reality-check my feelings against.

Of course I have an incredible crew of girlfriends, but there’s a comfort in having that support built into your everyday life. Someone you don’t have to worry about burdening because they’re already in it with you.

What are boyfriends for, if not for listening to me rant about the months long work drama involving people he will never meet yet needs to be deeply invested in?

3. Weekends without adult interaction

My kids don’t live with me full-time, and when I don’t have them I usually try to do something vaguely social and grown-up. Coffee with friends. A tipsy evening at the local dive bar watching an average band. Nothing groundbreaking, but it fills my cup.

And while I obviously love my time with my children just as much, it serves a very different purpose.

Because as joyful and loving as kids are, they do not, surprisingly, give much of a shit about your emotional needs.

Mine are incredibly empathetic little humans whose solution to any sign of emotional distress is to bring me an ice pack, which honestly is adorable. But they are children. They are meant to be consumed by their own intense little worlds.

It is not their job to emotionally regulate the adults in their life.

But being single without another adult in the house can feel incredibly isolating during this stage of parenting. Sometimes I go three full days without a meaningful conversation with another adult.

When I have my kids, I am primarily a parent and the only parent in the house. There’s very little room for me to have a bad day at work, a hormonal cry, or God forbid, a broken heart. That stuff gets pushed down until I drop them at their dad’s house and finally exhale.

Sometimes this loneliness hits hard enough that I start wondering whether it would be easier to simply accept this as my life.

To stop trying to balance single parenting with a social life and the hope of future love.

To stop pretending I can hold space for all of it.

It’s not a healthy mindset, I know.

It doesn’t happen often.

But loneliness is a real bitch like that.

It sneaks in quietly, then slaps me down the moment I start feeling like maybe I really can do this all on my own.

---

Maybe that’s the thing I’m slowly learning about loneliness, exhaustion and adulthood in general: sometimes there isn’t a neat solution. Sometimes the answer isn’t to “fix” it or rise above it or suddenly become so healed and evolved that none of it touches you anymore. Sometimes the answer is simply to admit that this is hard. That carrying a life on your own shoulders is hard. That parenting is hard. That holding boundaries is hard.

And, most importantly, that choosing self-respect over settling can be hard and lonely and still completely right.

I think there’s comfort in remembering that so many of us are quietly carrying versions of this. Holding it together in corporate offices and school pick-up lines and supermarket aisles while internally hanging on by a thread. Wanting connection without wanting to betray ourselves to get it. Trying our best to build lives that feel honest and whole, even when they also feel overwhelming.

So if you’re tired? I get it.

If you’re lonely sometimes despite knowing you’ve made the right choices? I get that too.

I don’t think the goal is to become someone who never struggles. I think the goal is to keep showing up for ourselves with honesty and softness anyway.

Because the right thing is often the hard thing. That doesn’t make it any less hard, but it does mean the struggle isn’t proof you’re doing life wrong. What if the loneliness we feel is proof that we’re choosing ourselves, our peace, our boundaries and our future, even when it would be easier not to?

In the meantime, I can recommend AirTasker, getting your groceries delivered, a killer bottle of wine and swearing off dating apps.

Until next time, lovers.

Evie xx

Going through it? I’ve got you, my love.

Get my free heartbreak healing guide here.