To the Lonely Woman

I think there’s a harmful idea going around that we’re supposed to find wholeness within ourselves without needing other people.

I worry about the ever-expanding language around finding total happiness and fulfillment from within. As if there is some point we’re supposed to reach where we no longer need anyone else.

Why have we allowed ourselves to believe that?

We need each other. We are deeply relational beings. We want to be known, understood, seen. We want to feel like we belong to something larger than ourselves. Something meaningful. Something familial.

And yet, being truly seen in a world of highlight reels and masking can feel terrifying. We live in a world that celebrates the wins but doesn’t always want to hear how you got there. There is something vulnerable, maybe even unnatural, about experiencing an intimacy so strong that the soul is unguarded.

That’s the paradox. We can want it so badly and fear it so profoundly.

So we pull away. We convince ourselves we don’t need anyone and call it independence. We call it self-love.

But it’s natural to long for connection. It’s natural to want someone to know you and choose to stay anyway. It’s natural to want to feel like you’re part of something.

You don’t have to become so whole that you no longer need anyone.

You don’t have to stop fearing it for it to show up.

You have to allow yourself to exist in the space between fear and longing.

And I’m sorry that, as a collective culture, we ever convinced you otherwise.