Single (parent) & The City

“Don’t worry – you’ll meet somebody.”  

That was the response I usually received when I told people my marriage of 13 years had crumbled – my husband met somebody. 

And I would want to believe them . I would cling to their words “you’ll meet somebody”, because I was convinced that, that is when this crippling pain of being a single mother would finally give way.  

The first person I met was on a drunken night out with my girlfriends. I was still counting days since “he” left.  

And on day 90 I was making the most of my grief weight loss in a Zara black leather skirt, five proseccos deep, when we kissed in a bar. We stumbled into a club before stumbling into his flat.  

This was it, the first time I was going to be with someone who wasn’t my husband – a 13 year streak broken.  

In the run-up to my girlfriends forcing me out of the house, I had been drowning my grief in Netflix binges. I just finished Marco Polo’s journey on the Silk Road and run in with Ghengis Khan’s concubines.  

So as this handsome stranger broke my divorcee cherry, I blurted out “Thank you Great Khan!”.  

I met someone. And then, the next morning, I un-met him. 

I met a South African cricketer, who transitioned from a business contact to fellow divorcee, also wanting to ease his pain. We did our best to help one other.   

I met a former Lord Mayor in the Royal Automobile Club and a rugby player in my favourite gay bar. There was the Pipe Fitter I kissed on the Fourth of July in my American t-shirt.   

I kept meeting and meeting, wondering if they were the “someone” that would draw a line under everything and signal the start of my healing. 

And then there was Teach.  

It was date seven and I got my nails done for the occasion, because I finally had a kid-free night.  

Teach was sitting on my bed when I switched off the lights, only to discover the “Moon Glow” colour I picked out to mark the night was actually RADIOACTIVE. GLOW. IN. THE. DARK. 

Cue 10 small neon UFOs making their way across the pitch black room, as he yells: “What is happening?! What are those?!”.

Miraculously, we kept meeting after that. 

And then, after nine months, I found myself crying into a wine glass as my girlfriend said those all too familiar words, “You’ll meet somebody”. 

But I had, over and over and over again. Meeting someone wasn’t the problem. Keeping them wasn’t even the problem. The problem was that “meeting someone” did not stifle my pain or smother me grief or teach my anything new. 

So I stopped meeting people for a while.  

I took up rowing. I made memories with my boys. We camped and explored and laughed. We went on holidays with fellow single parents. We celebrated the big stuff and relished the small.  

I learned to sit in the living room alone for more than five minutes. And then I learned how to enjoy a whole movie on my own there. 

I learned to appreciate the texts from my friends and stop craving the ones from people named “Stephen Hinge” or “Dave Tinder” on my phone. 

And then when I decided to meet someone again a funny Irishman named Cathal came along and made me laugh until I thought my ribs would break… I came up for air and realised this was the first time I didn’t cling to the hope of him being that “elusive someone”.  

And maybe that’s what it made it easier – after the dinners and movies, the weekends together, the inside jokes, the swapping of hopes and dreams – when he told me he couldn’t come to terms with me having kids. 

I was okay. For the first time, I didn’t spiral.  

I looked him in square in the eyes when he said all the things he admired about me weren’t in spite of my single motherhood but because of it.  

For the first time, I was bringing my whole self to something – not hoping I would find a missing half.  

Because the truth is, I was so damn busy scouring apps and hoping I’d find the other half of me in a bar, that I neglected to realise what was in front of me the whole time. 

I found it – in myself.  

Three years on, and I know I can do it on my own. And better than that – I know I can do it with SO. MUCH. JOY.  

The things I thought would be crippling alone – first days of school, birthdays, Sundays in the park – I never would really do alone - our tribe would be there, rooting us on. 

I would find strength in the right kind of numbers – the women like me carving out an unexpected path with all the courage they could muster. And that ultimately, we would laugh more than we would cry.  

So dear sweet Single Mama, I did meet lots of people. And I don’t think it matters whether I’m with one now. 

What matters is I fell in love with myself again. I realised I was whole. And that I was strong enough to do this. And that sort superpower high you get from that, is better than anything anyone else could give you. 

So stumble through bars, have so much fun, collect the nicknames do what you need to survive that moment. But I hope when someone tries to console you with “Don’t worry – you’ll meet somebody”, you’ll reply by telling them you already know her and she’s pretty damn great.  

- Xoxo Rose Longmore