Swiping and swimming - a year after Chris

Dear Lucy,

Sunday marks the one-year anniversary of my relationship coming to an end. The last time I wrote to you about romance was, Just before Chris when I was riddled with anxiety about the road to love. 

I learned a lot and grew as a person, and I wouldn’t undo the relationship we had, but as I reflect on this anniversary I wonder if I’ll ever make it out of the shallow end when it comes to love.

Whilst my peers are all navigating deeper waters - and yes, I know some are drowning, not waving - I’m still doggy-paddling around wishing I could take my arm bands off and be free.

And why am I still here? 

I read an article recently about how we can sabotage ourselves in love; weighed down, at least subconsciously, by the unbearable thought that someone might actually love us. Maybe Kylie should write a song about that (my mum thinks we're alike as we're both unlucky… lucky, lucky in love).

Or maybe it's how much I want a relationship. Yes, I’ve grown. I’ve learned that I’m enough - ironically thanks to Chris - and definitely don’t need a relationship the way I used to, but the shame of having never been married, or even asked, weighs me down like a faded ‘tried-on-for-fun’ wedding dress.

These are some of the things that stop me from swiping.

Maybe a relationship shouldn’t be my focus. ‘They’ say to be truly happy you should be able to be happy alone. But despite having learned to live alone, to be alone, I miss having a home-base, being part of a gang of two that buffers me from life. 

Occasionally I'm able to counterbalance being alone with other, more successful areas of my life. I have great friends, I’ve written books I’m proud of, achieved my dream of having my own radio show, etc., and despite convincing myself to the contrary, I wouldn’t give it all up for love. But I’d like love too.

But it feels less and less likely. The older we get the more ‘us’ we become; uncompromising, a more pungent vintage, less palatable than our once bright and breezy selves. 

When you grow with someone, affectations and afflictions get to creep quietly into the room and take root on the sofa. When you start a relationship in later life they are presented to you in a horrifying 3D collage; a fully formed, stewed person, warts, ticks and all.

Despite these horrors, we keep trying; throwing ourselves into the path of loss, sleepless nights and the potential that someone may one day turn around and say that we’re no longer required.

I’d never before understood this particular strain of heartbreak. Oh yes, I was unrequited and unsuccessful, but I’d never been dumped for want of a better word, well, apart from Costa Kevin but that’s another story. Being someone’s favourite person one day and being cut out of their life the next is brutal.

It’s not that I’m scared that will happen again but there’s fear that I've not learned whatever it is I need to learn, faced whatever it is I need to face so that I don’t attract someone into my life for a relationship that’s destined to fail. I know there's no love without risk but feeling I've had a hand in it is scary, and possible. 

But I’m ready to take that risk again. Despite the occasional “It’s him! He's come home to me!” when I see a grey VW Golf, I’m pretty certain I'm over the heartbreak. Playlists, photos, voice notes, video messages, valentine cards, they've all made their way to relationship heaven over the past year.

But I do miss him. That's the truth.

I miss him as a person, romance aside. And, as you know, he is a great person: pragmatic, perceptive, kind, jolly, encouraging, clever. And I'm OK with missing him because I think it's normal to miss someone you loved and admired so deeply. It doesn't mean I'm not ready to meet someone new.

Maybe I’m more towards the deep end than I give myself credit for. As I write this, I feel that perhaps the arm bands have come off and my toes are stretched out to touch the bottom, bouncing occasionally into self-sustained buoyancy. 

This swimming analogy is probably more about my own development as a human than just as one half of a couple. And this is where I can find strength because when it comes to life in general, there's no hesitation, I can swim.

I can swim out at sea, in unfathomable depths. I can swim with sharks and raging swells. I can swim with the disappointment of mistakenly spotting land. I can swim in the deep end!

I begin to muster myself once again.

I won’t give up on love, because to give up on love is to give up on life! 

Not the firework kind of love but the ‘just having someone there, reading a book whilst you potter about in the kitchen’ kind.

This is what keeps me swiping. It’s what will always keep me swiping.

And I’ll keep swiping because there just may be someone out there looking for someone who loves peanuts, orange squash and one song discos, and who can overlook the tooth guard, occasionally crippling misophonia and an intolerance for enjoying any social activity for more than an hour and a half. And somehow, our paths just may cross.

So yes, despite everything, I'll keep swiping, and swimming.