Member-only story
Sacred Solitude and the Weight of Expectations
Inspired by Nikhil’s “Marriage Shouldn’t Feel Like an Adoption”
Being single for a long time can shift your entire perspective. Especially when you’ve spent years living for others, caring for them, considering their needs before your own, sometimes even living their lives for them. When your long-time dream of standing on your own finally becomes real, when you get to work, live, breathe with only yourself to consider, it becomes sacred.
You begin to treasure your own company. You start to trust your natural rhythms, follow your own instincts, and build a life that feels whole with only you in it. Your life. Your time. Your rules. Your way. The peace that comes from no longer compromising yourself, no longer having to explain your heart to anyone,it becomes something you fiercely protect.
And maybe that’s why the idea of loving anyone feels more like a threat than a promise. Not out of bitterness. Not out of fear. But because you’ve finally understood the true value of your own space, your own calm. You’ve tasted a stillness that doesn’t depend on anyone, and now… you’re not sure if chaos, even in the name of love, is worth disturbing that peace.
Maybe, just maybe, being only you is not just enough—it’s everything.
