The title is an affirmation I coined a few years ago while I was going through my divorce. It was a difficult time in my life. I had much to regret and bewail, so I needed to remind myself to look around me and enjoy the little joys that were there.
In the intervening years, I had managed to find a meaningful relationship that sustained and nurtured me. It was long-distance, but the distance shrank by our sheer determination to love each other. I count those years as the happiest in my life.
A few months ago, shy of our sixth year together, it ended. The devastation and grief seemed unendurable.
Suddenly, weeks after the final breakup, I caught myself laughing, loudly, while reading a funny book. I realized that was the first time I had laughed in over a month. “What’s wrong with me?” I asked. The daily bouts of crying were inevitable, but I needed to re-orient myself to the future.
Perhaps the week-long spell of sunshine played a part, but I found I was actually starting to enjoy my single life. The long-distance aspect had meant constant travelling, every two weeks, taking away all my free weekends. Between my daughter and my girlfriend, I had no time for friends or a social life. I couldn’t even contemplate a long bike ride except on special occasions like Mother’s Day. So now, I have more free time to see my friends, read books, go out, and do whatever I want.
More importantly, I can look back to a time in between my divorce and the beginning of that long-distance relationship. I was alone, and I was happy still. I don’t need anyone else to be happy. For me, loving her was always a choice, not a need. I wanted to spend time with her because I enjoyed spending time with her. Every booking of a new trip to meet each other was a renewal of that choice.
I certainly don’t need her. My world isn’t going to end because she left. Though I miss her, her absence doesn’t stop me from enjoying the beauty of nature on my daily walk, from eating healthy and exercising, or from cooking a fancy meal for myself.
The last five years were the happiest time in my life, true, but that doesn’t preclude that what’s to come can be happier still.
“It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of someone else’s life with perfection”
– The Bhagavad Gita (quoted by Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray Love)
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