I’m tired today. Not the kind of tired that a good night’s sleep will fix—the kind that lives inside your body and mind after eighteen years of being responsible and achieving and pivoting and accelerating and stopping and then starting again.
Last weekend, I was hanging with a friend who’s in a long-term, committed relationship. We got onto the topic of how people don’t really talk about what it means to be a woman in your late 30s or 40s who isn’t partnered. Not in a pity party way, but in a practical, day-to-day reality way.
Every rent payment. Every bill. Every decision about what to eat, where to go, where to live, whether to finally deal with that thing you’ve been putting off. Every single thing falls on you. The grocery shopping, the cleaning, the cooking, the earning, the planning, the maintenance of your entire life—it’s all on you.
And it’s not just all the doing. It’s that there’s no one to be with at the end of the day. There’s no one to share the small stuff with—the cute thing Uno did, the realization that came up during journaling, that funny thing that so-and-so said, the tiny moment that made me happy. You just… experience it and move on.
Of course I have friends and family I talk to every day. I’m not isolated. But it’s different. There’s a very different type of sharing that happens when someone is living life with you, in real time, in the same space. When they see the mess, the little bits of magic, and everything in between. It’s not really loneliness. It’s more like…there’s no witness to your daily life.
Being solo has mostly felt like freedom, and in some ways it is. I think I rarely (if ever) thought about this stuff during my 20s and early 30s. And the truth is that after nearly two decades, it gets pretty freaking exhausting sometimes. I haven’t talked about it because I don’t want to seem whiny, lame, needy, or unaware of the fact that everyone—regardless of relationship status or circumstance—is experiencing their own set of very tired days and difficulties. We’re all just out here living and having experiences and seeing what happens.
Another thing I want to be clear about—I have so much respect and admiration for the women in the world who are married, partnered, who have kids, and the single moms navigating it all. Everyone’s situation is vastly different, and the grass isn’t always greener. Being married comes with its own set of unique complexities. Being married with kids—a whole other level. Being a single mom—I can’t even imagine the weight of that. I’m not saying my situation is harder or that anyone else has it easier. I’m saying that sometimes, being solo for this long is also hard. Different hard, but hard nonetheless.
The good news is that I still showed up for myself anyway today. I woke up early. I took out the trash. I meditated. I journaled. I wrote grad school essays. I sent job applications. I worked out. I took care of Uno. I fed myself really good food. I did the dishes. I did all of it even though I just felt like laying on the couch and reading a book or watching a movie.
Again, this isn’t me complaining about my life. I’m grateful for what I have—the people, the support, the love that exists in all corners of the world and right here in my immediate proximity. I know how lucky I am. But I can be grateful and tired at the same time. Those things can exist together. I think it’s healthy to actually say how I’m feeling instead of staying quiet about it.
I keep showing up anyways because I value commitment.
When you commit to something, someone, or yourself—you show up no matter what. Not just when it’s easy or convenient or when you’re feeling naturally inspired. You show up on the hard days. The exhausted days. The days when you think one more thing might make you scream.
For me, showing up is about the little girl inside me. My inner child. I need her to know that she’s worth total attention and safety and love on a consistent basis. She deserves delicious meals and movement and activities and dancing around the house while playing with Uno. I’m the adult who can give her that now. So that’s what I do. I show up for my adult self and for her—every day, no matter what.
Something else I’ve been thinking about is that I haven’t met my person yet, but maybe the timing has been exactly right.
These eighteen years of taking care of things weren’t wasted or pointless. They were necessary. I needed to learn that I can handle things on my own. I needed to prove to myself that I’m good no matter what. That I’m whole exactly as I am, and I don’t need rescuing or completing. I’m not sure I’d really be ready without having learned that for myself.
The next chapter won’t just be about finally having someone to share the load with (although let’s be real, that’ll be nice). It’ll be about learning something completely new—how to respect my independence and individuality while being in a committed relationship with a guy who is also an independent individual. How to let someone in without losing myself. How to build something together without either of us disappearing into it.
But as for today, I’m just tired. And I’m showing up anyway. Because that’s what commitment looks like.
