A letter to the version of me who was scared to be alone after divorce

You did it. You're doing it. You made it out.

One year ago, the thought of being alone sent a wave of panic and terror through you. You'd cry when he left for work every morning. Solo outings felt like a ticking time bomb. Like one wrong blink and the tears would come gushing out with no Band-Aids in sight.

Even when your marriage turned sour, you stayed out of fear. Because the thought of being alone was too much to handle. Though you put out fire after fire, being alone was an ever-encroaching nightmare steadily catching up to you, ready to catch you by the heel and drag you down to your own personal hell.

So you stayed. Marriage felt like a safety blanket, but it was actually the origin of the fire, keeping you ablaze the longer you held on.

Finally, you let go when there was nothing left to grasp. When the very fibers of the marriage had turned to ash. And then, your worst nightmare caught up to you.

But slowly, so slowly, through months of sleeping alone, breakfasts for one, and finding yourself again, you found a sliver of peace in loneliness. Still, being alone felt like a punishment.

Today, you are on your own. You live in a new city with a new friend-turned-roommate. She's out of town for the weekend, so you have the place totally to yourself. You eat a whole tub of Talenti while watching Modern Family and then tuck yourself into your pink bed at 9 pm. You wake up when you want to. You eat cold pizza for breakfast because you can. You wear what you want, work out how you want, eat what you want, watch what you want, and feel amazing.

And suddenly at 3 pm it finally hits you. You're alone. And it feels more like freedom than running. You start to cry because you realize how far you've come.

What would have been a nightmare a year ago is now your ideal weekend.

You're growing. You're doing it.