When I was first on my own again, living alone after fourteen years, I worried I wouldn’t like my own company anymore.
How would I fill the hours with my art if I couldn’t be alone in the silence? Once upon a time, I adored solitude. But now, I wasn’t sure. In that fear, I sat with a deeper question: how would I fall in love with this jaded, middle-aged artist I’ve become? And who was that girl I used to be?
The lyrics to Miley Cyrus’s Used to Be Young still taunt me, like a reprimand I can’t shake. I used to let myself be wild. I caught flashes of her in the last handful of years: at a writing conference in Vegas, at that Boys II Men/New Kids on the Block concert, in the unflinching moment when I left my marriage. She surfaces in times of bravery and chaos, but where is she now in the day-to-day? Can you ever really go back?
I look at the art I made before I entered committed relationships—the rawness, the freedom. I was better at writing back then I think. I didn’t censor myself. But life got quieter, safer (or so I thought). I traded the wildness for partnership, for approval. I wanted to be loved, so I made myself smaller. Some of it was also probably the suffocating polish of a traditional education, but more than that, I dulled myself to keep the peace. I lessened the artist in me.
Partnership matters—I still believe that. But the wrong partner? The wrong partner steals your sparkle and calls it compromise, often unintentionally. In hindsight, I can see how I’ve done this again and again. I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a truly healthy relationship. Maybe that’s why the question keeps gnawing: who am I now, without someone else beside me?
I don’t have answers. Is there any science to back up these feelings? I don't know. I'm not gonna try and find it. You do, please share it.
What I do know is that I’m in a different season now. Wild and free sounds like something for someone else, someone younger, someone with more energy. I’m in my hygge era, I think. The North Woods Girl. Maybe I don’t need the same wildness. Maybe I just need to figure out who I am in the stillness.
Extra Reading
My friend Melanie Bishop wrote a wonderful essay on being unable to write. I encourage you to read Chopping Wood: On Writing, Retreats, and Starting a Fire for a look into the writing life of another author.
Social Connection
I am not on the main social medias anymore, but have we connected on LinkedIn? How about on Pinterest?
Book Recommendation
I absolutely adore Caleb Carr's the Dr. Lazlo Kreizler series and have been looking to fill the void since it doesn't seem like Carr is going to answer my pleading for another book. I asked "suggest a book" Reddit for a like title and they came through for me. Head to Dobson, New York in 1905 to solve a murder In The Shadow of Gotham.
