Forever Alone | Chapter 6: Covid & Copping Out (Part 3)
In which I get called out so hard I break out in cold sweats, offend people at a wedding, surprise myself by getting a job, and rant like my life depends on it.
I published Forever Alone: One Introverted Millennial’s Half-Agonizing, Half-Hopeful Journey Through Singledom in 2021 as a 7-part podcast miniseries. I’m re-publishing it here on Substack for the first time in written form! Start reading from the beginning here.
There’s no doubt that the Universe felt my change of heart, because almost immediately things started to happen—and quickly.
A couple weeks after I’d sat queasy and clammy, reading my Enneagram debrief, Kristen and I had a breakdown over our business. We hadn’t had any potential clients reach out in a worryingly long period of time. What had worked for so long—at least well enough for us to skate by—didn’t seem to be working anymore. We spent an afternoon freaking out, wondering if maybe this was the end—we’d had a good run, but we weren’t meant for business ownership anymore. Time to admit defeat and move back in with our parents. Every 31-year-old’s dream.
But after wringing the fear out of our system, we started to get a little mad. Like, “You know what, fuck it. If this is falling apart, maybe we should just lean in! If there’s nothing left to lose, why not make all the changes we’ve been thinking about, but have been too afraid to actually do because we didn’t want to rock the boat and break everything?” We made a list of all the things we wanted to stop doing, new things we wanted to start doing, and when we wanted it all to happen. We felt immediately lighter.
Then, that same evening, we got an email. A potential client was reaching out to say that she thought the form on our website where people sign up for coaching was acting up—she’d filled it out two weeks ago and hadn’t heard back. Kristen quickly logged into the backend of our site, only to discover that yes, the form had broken … and that this person was one of five people who’d tried to reach us about coaching in the past couple weeks. Our business hadn’t been broken. Just our website. But thinking our business was broken, even for a few hours, was a slingshot—it pulled us back (out of the complacency we’d found ourselves in for too long) and allowed us to make plans that would rocket us forward.
Then, a couple months later, an interesting opportunity landed in our laps. We’d recently agreed to do a talk for prospective coaches with iPEC, the coach training school we’d attended. In prepping for the interview, the Admissions Director loved getting to know us. One thing led to another, and we were both offered the opportunity to lend our talents to the Admissions team in a part-time capacity.
When I quit the law firm job back in 2014, I swore I’d never work for someone else again. Now, five years later, I was seriously considering saying yes to a part-time job. It felt like an answer to the question I’d been asking myself for months—How do I honor my own needs and uplevel myself, without waiting for a partner? Plus, it was work I was naturally suited for, and had plenty of experience doing already, with great people. It was fully remote. The hours were flexible. They completely respected my and Kristen’s business, and wouldn’t dream of interfering with that. I was afraid to give up so much time and space—two things I value highly—but I also trusted that this opportunity hadn’t flowed so easily for no reason. So, I said yes.
The month Kristen and I started at iPEC, she told me that next year, when our lease was up, she’d be moving out. It wasn’t shocking, but it was terrifying. Listen, I don’t necessarily recommend starting a business with your roommate. It means you have almost zero separation from the relationship. It’s easy to get incredibly enmeshed and accidentally codependent. But, to be fair, when we’d gotten our first apartment in 2011, we didn’t know we’d be starting a business. We just thought we wanted to write a book! And then we just … kept living together. For nine years. Because neither one of us had ever had a reason to move out. Until now.
I’d never had to contemplate living on my own before. Advisable or not, Kristen and I had been a unit, in more ways than one. Business partners, yes. Friends, of course. But we’d also shared a lot of domestic duties, too. Now, I was faced with the prospect of having to do everything on my own—cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping—just when my life had become more complicated than it had in five years, thanks to a new job. In my fear and grief about this transition, I thought, “Cool. You get to make a decision that makes your life that much easier, and makes my life harder and more expensive, and I didn’t even get a say in it.”
I wish I could say that therapy had transformed me to the point that I quickly accepted this new reality with grace, buuuut not so much. Between the juggling act that having two jobs required, plus the new, massive unknown of where I’d be living the next year, and the fear about whether I could afford it, a few months later I’d worked myself into such an anxious state that I found myself crying in the lobby of a Patient First, desperate for drugs to help me beat back crippling insomnia. And, as if that wasn’t quite enough, this was in February. Of 2020. Which means things were about to get a whole lot more complicated.
Later that month, sleeping somewhat better thanks to medical intervention, I started browsing real estate listings. I had to move in five months and I wasn’t sure where I was going to go. I wished I could buy my own place, but it felt like a stretch. After several months of part-time work, I’d been able to make serious progress on my financial goals—I was about to completely pay off my debt the following week. But I hadn’t bolstered my savings enough to make home ownership feasible—if I went that route, I’d have no money left in savings, and that felt like a dumb decision for someone solely responsible for herself. Renting felt more feasible, even though I cringed at how expensive it was for a person on their own.
Still, I scrolled through listings on Zillow, looking at both rentals and homes for sale. When one popped up that looked too good to be true—an apartment with stunning views for sale a few miles away, in a building situated on a lake in one of my favorite neighborhoods—I called my friend Joanna and asked if she wanted to go to the open house later that day. She was delighted to come on a mini adventure with me.
The apartment was too good to be true. The views were as impressive as I’d imagined, but the place was far too big for one person, and the entire thing needed renovating. It was underpriced for a reason. But the realtor gave us a list of other places in the neighborhood with open houses that day, so Jo and I visited a few more condos. None were exactly right, and I feared that even the ones listed at the lower end were still outside the realm of possibility for me, but for the first time it was kind of fun to imagine a different life, rather than terrifying.
That, of course, didn’t last long. A couple weeks later the world went into lockdown, and I was faced with more uncertainty than I’d imagined possible a month earlier. My and Kristen’s income relies on something that’s not exactly necessary for survival, and we had no idea how people would react during a pandemic. Would they panic and hoard their resources—like so much toilet paper—and forgo “nice to haves” like coaching? It was too soon to tell. But given an uncertain income, the prospect of moving was now completely up in the air. Buying a place, if it had ever been an option, was out. Renting was very risky. The safest choice was to move in with my parents or brother when our lease was up and ride out the rest of the pandemic. I didn’t relish the idea of giving up my independence, but what could I or anyone do in the face of something so out of our control?
On May 1st, I still had no idea where I’d be living on August 1st—just that I would be living somewhere else by then, because I had to be out of my place by July 31st. Then, on May 5th, Kristen and I found out our application for the Paycheck Protection Program—the stimulus relief offered to small businesses during the pandemic—had been approved. We were both going to receive almost 3 months’ worth of income that we wouldn’t have to pay back.
Knowing I had that money in my savings gave me the confidence to start looking at listings again, this time in earnest. A few days later I saw a condo for sale in the same neighborhood as the apartment with the impressive lake view, but this one was smaller and far more reasonably priced. It had gone on the market the week of lockdown—the worst possible timing for the previous owner, but ideal for me—and had sat there for six weeks with no offers. I called my mom’s best friend, a realtor, and asked if we could go see it. I met her there the next day. We both agreed that this was maybe the first time ever a place was actually nicer than the pictures online. It was a small one-bedroom condo that had been renovated a few years earlier—wood floors, fireplace, built-in bookshelf, granite countertops. The kitchen needed a little work, but nothing my dad couldn’t do. The selling point was the view of the lake—more modest than the big apartment, but striking nonetheless. Two days later, I was under contract and struggling with emotional whiplash—a week earlier, I’d thought home ownership was out of the question, and seriously thought I’d be living with my family come August.
The next 3 months were some of the most insanely busy of my life. Kristen and I were trying to pivot and successfully run a business during a pandemic, I was going through the mortgage and home-buying process for the first time, I was buying furniture and dealing with the logistics of moving plans, and I’d also just gotten a promotion at the part-time job, which required hours and hours of extra training that I was expected to magically find time for.
The day we both left our townhouse and went our separate ways, I got in my car and drove to Target. I walked around the store, picking up new towels and a bath mat, trying to contain the mess of feelings I was having. At the checkout I was greeted by someone I knew—Kevin, who used to work at the organic grocery store that Kristen and I frequented. He said, “Hey, you’re Kristen’s roommate, right?” I almost laughed out loud. I rarely went to this Target, and I’d never once seen someone I knew. Of course this would happen today. I told Kevin, “Not anymore!”
Later that night, as I unpacked and listened to Folklore for the first time—bless Taylor Swift for putting out a surprise album at the exact moment I needed it—I thought:
“Well, I don’t know exactly who this version of me will become. But I know for sure that the person who lives here isn’t the same one who lived there.”
Barring one minor incident of my upstairs neighbor’s washing machine busting a hose and requiring me to get an entirely new kitchen ceiling and light fixture three weeks after I moved in, I spent the rest of 2020 settling into a new rhythm. I coasted—but this time, not from a place of burnout or avoidance. After the anxiety of the winter and spring, and the breakneck pace of the summer, I knew the rest of the year needed to be slow and calm; I needed to let my body, mind, and spirit recharge. I wanted to intentionally bring in as much feminine energy as possible—ease, rest, flow—while still working two jobs and being responsible for the daily tasks of life. I went to the farmer’s market, which is in a parking lot just downstairs, every weekend. I made tomato basil soup and baked vegan, gluten free muffins. I unfurled my mat and did gentle, hip-opening yoga in my living room. I took long walks around the lake and watched the sun glint on the water. In the winter, I sat in front of a crackling fire, eating avocado pesto pasta and watching Bridgerton.
I took care of myself. In both of the ways that mattered. I maintained the discipline and structure—the masculine energy—needed to earn the money that allowed me to thrive, financially, and that made me a responsible homeowner. But I also cultivated the space and ease and compassion—the feminine energy—that allowed me to nurture and nourish myself. Maybe for the first time ever, I saw a balance forming between the two, within me. I still craved a partner who would afford me the opportunity to be less in my masculine, but maybe in learning how to meet my own needs, I was readying myself for someone who’d also be a master at meeting my needs.
By January, the post-move calm and flow of the last six months was waning, and new energy was burgeoning. I started to feel antsy and agitated. I’d moved because life required it, not because it had been my plan. But I’d seen this happen so often with my clients—when life throws a challenge and you rise to it; when you spend a year of your life up-leveling in almost every way—you can expect your life to change, quickly. I’d expected that me expanding in such a major way would clear the path to a partner—that maybe this would finally have been enough to get what I wanted. When six months had passed and nothing had happened, I started to get annoyed and impatient.
What was there left to DO, for god’s sake?? But, then an answer came. One last thing—the sole remaining holdout—of all the things I’d avoided and spent the last year-and-a-half facing head-on. I needed to … date. For real this time. That’s to come, in the seventh and final chapter of Forever Alone.
This was Chapter 6: Part 3 of Forever Alone. Read on for Chapter 7: Part 1!