Saturday 18th July, drunk in a Chinese restaurant. Otherwise known as the evening of my twenty-second birthday. Surrounded by my friends and family, I exclaimed: “I'll be a thirty-year-old bride at this rate” and “I’ll probably never even get married” between mouthfuls of satay chicken skewers and gulps of White Zinfandel.
Single, Alone, Alive
Like so many, I spent my early twenties seeing life as a to-do list. Always desperate to tick off the next big thing which somehow equates success and therefore, happiness. I bought my first home three months after my twenty-second birthday and spent the next few years definitely praying for an engagement which would hopefully lead to a marriage and maybe (I just assumed) an eventual baby. However, almost four years after my twenty-second birthday, I got dumped instead.
Heartbroken, lost and the worst part: single at almost twenty-six.
Looking around at my childhood bedroom, it was in that moment I realised that I had never experienced adulthood single. Did I actually know who I was and what I wanted? Or had I simply lived my twenties prescribing to society’s narrative and existing purely as only one half of a couple. Something that was no longer my reality. I was just Shea and yet, I had to do some work to figure out who that was. What was my narrative?
The figuring out for me came from journaling. A process which released my thoughts and feelings and encouraged self-awareness and self-reflection. This eventually led to a much greater goal, my first book: Single, Alone, Alive. The book is my story of recovery post-breakup and how I gained a sense of self, following years of codependency. I share with the reader my darkest moments as well as my greatest achievement to date: travelling to a different continent alone. Interestingly, whenever I approached a check-in desk or hotel reception I was asked: “is it just yourself?”. Yes, for what feels like the hundredth time, it’s just me.
Nobody tells you that that debilitating ‘end of the world’ feeling is in fact a chance to begin again. Of course, it’s frightening and intense but how often do we get the chance to completely start over and recreate life on purely our own terms?
Prioritising mindfulness through the cathartic power of writing has given me a new perspective on change and the ability to always see the positives and discover my inner strength. It has enabled me to see that happiness is a mindset and we must practise happy habits to maintain this. Ultimately, it has allowed me to understand self-love; to experience it, to live it and to get it.
I write this piece today approaching twenty-eight with an improved taste in wine, still single and alone and still very much figuring things out. And yet, this is the happiest and most alive I’ve ever felt as just Shea.
Single, Alone, Alive. is available in both paperback and eBook versions. You can get your copy from Lulu, Amazon or Shea’s official website.
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