The Paris Diary: 2 Weeks of Singledom ❤️
All the doubts that come with being alone.
written by Elena Chen
This is about being single for 2 weeks while in a 3 year long relationship.
I think I have a pretty low tolerance for imperfection and my ideas of perfection are persnickety. So I can get upset quite a lot, especially when it comes to the expectations I have of myself or of the people close to me. Belgian-American psychotherapist Esther Perel said, the quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life. I couldn't agree more. My boyfriend is a top quality person and we have a really cool relationship, even if I do say so myself. We moved to Paris together a year ago, a year after I started taking French lessons at a community college. Since meeting, we've traveled to more than 7 countries together. How is that even possible? I don't know to be honest. Life has a way of filling itself out. Recently he left for a two week long trip in Asia with some friends and I was struggling with the idea of it for so long. I wanted to be the kind of person who is so self assured that I wouldn't give a second thought to my partner going for a great adventure without me. Me, being at home, day after day, all alone. What am I going to do with all the time? And this thought scared me more than anything.
I am ultimately whole. And very fine at that. I don't need this person to complete me.
Had I forgotten already what it means to be alone? Had I gotten so complacent in a relationship that I let dust settle on all the principles I laid out for myself? Is my life, as a single student, really something I can't find a way to ascribe meaning to? On the eve of his departure, as I stood there frantically packing the rest of his suitcase with him 40 minutes before the cab to the airport arrived, I felt the first pang of many moments where I was even a little looking forward to this time, all alone.
I was invited to join their trip many times but I knew I had to take on this challenge because it was an affirmation I needed for myself. I needed to teach myself the lesson behind growing comfortable with sleeping alone, cooking meals for one and making decisions on my own. I am ultimately whole. And very fine at that. I don't need this person to complete me. He just makes my life better, not what it is. I was right to question my complacency because I had allowed that narrative to take root. Again. That narrative where the central conflict to my existence is a romantic one upon whose resolution I would reach true happiness. My happily ever after. I kept trying to fix things in my relationships or the other person to get to that, to finally be happily ever after, but it was misdirected energy headed for entropy. Happily ever after is a narrative, a story, told to children, who are willing to listen. Why do we tell children these things? It's terribly unrealistic and misleading.
Have I been happy, during this temporary singledom? Oh, yes. I miss my partner but I have also been happy. I took this wonderful walk from one end of the Seine to the other on a gently sunkissed afternoon. I went to have Korean food with some friends that tasted incredible. I made sales with my small business, in French no less! I went to the cinema, I had classes at school, I had a dinner party. I watched this truly well made Chinese tv show about lawyers. This doesn't sound like much compared to a two week adventure across Japan and Korea, but adventure isn't the only version of happiness. I've been having my own sort of adventure anyway. I share this experience with myself and myself only, really. Even on vacation with others, we are ultimately privy to our own experience of the vacation. The inclusion of friends changes the field of possible events that could otherwise occur if we were alone, but we experience all our experiences with ourselves and then other people come into the picture.
I’d been neglecting this solo adventure a little bit. It’s been relegated to the back burner. I kept telling myself I’d come back to it. But then it got lost amidst all the other tasks and errands that were oh so important. During this two week hiatus from living with my partner, I realized just how much I rely on being in a relationship to nourish my social life and my decision making. Now that I was the sole agent concerned in how I would spend my afternoons, dinners and weekends, I was given this responsibility to use the time well (especially because I couldn’t help but measure my own time against the yardstick of my partner’s trip) and to honor this opportunity for reflection. As I penciled in unexpected friend dates and rock climbing sessions, new movies I wanted to see at the cinema and a restaurant I’ve been meaning to try, I realized that my ability to stay happy, doing the things I like doing, was really good for our relationship. Between time difference, busy schedules and internet connection difficulties, the conversations I could share with my partner were limited. I found myself embracing these stolen moments of interaction and truly appreciating them, because like him, I knew I had other plans to look forward to afterwards as well.
There is an equilibrium that is maintained when two people who know how to nourish their own respective happiness come together. It might be one of those things we can only experience for ourselves and find it impossible to explain. After all the work I’ve done 7 years on from my first breakup, I still carry the rupture with me; a hidden rock in a pocket. Having been rendered henceforth slightly off-center and prone to tripping, my most effective treatment plan has been to unearth the parts of myself told to disappear because somebody else didn’t like them. I was too expressive, too sensitive, had too many ideas and too strongly opinionated. I wasn’t practically-minded enough, experienced enough or knowledgeable enough. I was too daring in my choice of clothing, I stood out too much and I made too many mistakes.
Now that I live in Paris, I know that I am hardly too outspoken. My wardrobe choices seem to fit right in here. My current partner loves that I am opinionated and in typical French fashion we often debate. I try to do as many things as I can to solidify my own identity now, which is separate from his, and from my past. I want to build into my sense of self a willingness and readiness to be alone because I know that it is in my body, in this experience, that I have the best time. Not wishing I was somewhere else or someone else. I am rather loud and I believe in the benefits of talking to oneself aloud. I am bold and I think with the right crowd it becomes a good thing. In holding the multiplicity of memory, I want to at once remember the person I was and that which I have experienced without allowing it to hinder or limit the person I am and wish to become – a self-enacted, self-realizing individual who happens to with another such individual, trying to build a life together. Encased within friendship, family and lover is also me, myself and I. How rich that we exist on so many tiers with so many multitudes. There’s never a dull moment.
LINKED IN
Articles I’ve read that may be of interest:
An interview with our favorite American in Paris, Caroline Gaimari and the Haute Couture Federation on the state of TikTok fashion
All Gen Z wants is to save the planet, can companies please pay them to do so
Diane von Furstenberg on why only “losers don’t feel like losers”
*My quick Diane von Furstenberg story: I used to work around the corner from DVF’s glamorous headquarters in the Meatpacking District (NYC). It was October and during that exact point at dusk, I waited outside my office, sitting atop a dusty warehouse step because I couldn’t take my Chloe platforms anymore. I was waiting for my co-worker to come out so we can get a quick bite and drinks and then what appeared in like a surreal dusky haze - she passed me. She, was, Diane von Furstenberg, her hair down, no eyewear, but cloaked in a light colored pashmina shawl and short stacked heel pumps. Diane caught my stare and gave me a left-sided half smile. She looked right at me, acknowledged my presence. I thought, wow I just had a moment with one of the most amazing feminists and friend of Andy Warhol’s and nobody was here to see it except me - and Diane herself. And that’s how I know she’s a girl’s girl. Hope to God that I smiled back, I still can’t remember if I did.
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