You Mean It’s Okay to Be Single?

The next year my mother started dating a man who moved in with us—well, sort of moved in with us. He was a free spirit who traveled around the world. He would live with us for months, even years on end, and then take off for months. He loved my mom and I tremendously, but he wasn’t really steady or consistent in our lives. If I could have had one wish in those years it would have been to have a father who was dependable.

Fast forward to my freshman year of college when I started dating an amazing, loyal, honest, smart, hard-working, handsome guy. We married six weeks after graduation only to divorce two years later. Looking back on my first marriage I see that I got married partially as an attempt to make amends with my messy childhood. I suppose I felt a lot of comfort in marriage since my parents were divorced when I was so young and since the only father figure in my life was more into exploration than domesticity. Marrying an honest, dependable man probably gave me a bit of validation that I wasn’t weird and unlovable as I had imagined myself to be as a child. It was like a social seal of approval I desperately needed.

We were too young, though, and despite the fact that we really did love one another, my ex husband and I needed to live our lives as adults before settling down. We needed to “find ourselves” if you will. I knew pretty early on in our marriage that we had made a mistake. I often joke that as soon as the honeymoon ended, our marriage ended, which isn’t far from the truth although I didn’t want to admit it at the time. It’s scary to be a young newlywed filled with regret. I ignored my gut for nearly two years and worked really hard to make my marriage work, but in the end it wasn’t right. My epiphany came one afternoon in the form of a daydream about myself in my fortiess with daughters in their late teens. I imagined myself telling my girls, “Don’t get married young like I did. Live alone. Travel the world. Date many, many men. Experience everything before getting married.” It was a hard slap in the face that I was already living vicariously through daughters that hadn’t even been conceived yet. That daydream made me realize that if I didn’t leave my marriage I would regret it for the rest of my life.