There I was, doing an assignment for a Bootcamp on confidence, writing a vision of what my world would look like if I had unlimited confidence.

I set out to write a vision of myself as a successful author of an inspiring and hilarious memoir. Between that and my editing income, I’d be doing so well that I could afford to buy a space to build a creative retreat. But when I put my pen to paper—I wrote about love. And instead of feeling empowered, I couldn’t decide if I should roll my eyes, puke, or cry. And THEN, instead of imagining my fantastic future, I scoured the internet for an ex-boyfriend that I broke up with seven years ago because I wasn’t in love with him.

What

the

actual

fuck?

For years, I’ve been telling people that my memoir’s central theme was to show people it’s okay and even fantastic to be single. Maybe describing my terrible dates isn’t the best way to do that. Maybe I need to rethink this.

Maybe it’s time to take a step back and tell myself it’s okay to want love. That it’s okay to be disappointed when Cupid never comes calling. Is it okay to believe in a fairy tale? I want to believe.

So I’ve been holding out hope for this magical glittery feeling I see in the movies, that I hear about in songs, that I see in simple acts like buying groceries as a couple. Love is everywhere, it would appear, yet always out of reach. Maybe love is like a fickle cat that senses desperation and hides under the couch.

People have told me I’m too picky. You know what I have to say about that? Fuck that. Am I expected to push my feelings into a little box and settle for the guy that counted the number of workouts he missed because of me? Or what about that guy with no job, three kids, and sex offender charges? No thanks.

It was strangely comforting to say the problem was all in the crazy guys that the universe kept sending me. But then people started asking, “Why do you think you attract these men, Christina?” Then the statement that really stung: “You know what all these stories have in common? You.” But you know what? Fuck that, too. I’d rather not unpeel the layers of my soul to reveal hideous truths.

So I did what any sane, avoidant person would do. After spending essentially 93% of the last fourteen years single, I told myself that love simply didn’t exist. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t the fault of this parade of strange men that kept filling my Friday nights. Much safer to believe the fairy tale was precisely what everyone else knew it to be in the first place. A fairy tale. No one past the age of eight believes in fairy tales, so why should I?

I have no problem believing in the love I feel for my friends or for any animal that crosses my path. Yet, I see so few real-life examples of the love I seek. I have witnessed and experienced the opening scenes of Once Upon a Time, but these stories seem to be written by George R.R. Martin; there are no happily ever afters. Okay, maybe that’s harsh. Thankfully, the stories I’ve witnessed don’t all end in death, and none had dragons or incest.

What I usually observe is less fairy tale, more tolerance. I see moments of heart-tugging tenderness, but often along the way, the tenderness becomes comfort, the comfort becomes resentment, then resentment leads to resignation or separation.

But if I stop believing in fairy tales, where does that leave me? Rationally, I know it’s impossible to maintain the elevated level of happiness and madness of those early days of falling in love, but shouldn’t it at least be there at the start? I recently read that lasting relationships don’t necessarily have that feeling. Instead, they have a calm, even-keeled swelling of emotions. Shit, that makes me think of the ex from seven years ago again. What if that was love, but I didn’t know it because it wasn’t the intense, heart-crushing love I’ve been seeking? Not that it matters now; my internet stalking yielded nothing but dashed hopes of what might have been.

I read that we tell ourselves stories of false rewards of being single to keep ourselves safe, and I thought, Really? Those false rewards seem pretty real to me. I don’t have to worry about the meditation app I listen to every night annoying a partner. I never wake to someone’s snores. I do what I want without saying, “We’ll see. I’ll check with my partner.” When I’m out with friends, I never worry about shitty comments and arguments if I get home too late. I don’t walk on eggshells.

When I left my ex-husband, I was not a whole person. I was so young when I met him that I didn’t know who I wanted to be, so I poured myself into him, into us. When we split twelve years later, I felt like crying every time I accidentally said “we” instead of “I.” There was no more “we,” but I still didn’t know who “I” was.

Not long before the divorce, a pivotal conversation helped cement that he was not my Prince Charming. One of my friends had hurt me in a pretty big way, and he said, “See, Christina, this is why you shouldn’t have friends. It’s only a matter of time before they stab you in the back. Better to save yourself the pain.”

What a terrible way to live. Even if he was right and they all do eventually stab me in the back, I’d take that risk. The happiness they bring me today is worth it. Why would I deprive myself of joy for fear that someday in the distant future they might hurt me?

But isn’t that what I’m doing in telling myself that love doesn’t exist? I wonder if the reason I can’t find love is that I’m terrified that if I do, I will become less. I like the Christina I built after “we” were no more. I worry that being in love means giving up what I like about “me” and being consumed by “us” once again.

Dare I believe the joy of love is worth the risk? I’ll see.

-Christina Howell

In a former life, Christina Howell was a project manager in Kansas City. When life kept handing her incredible stories, she began writing her memoir, “Magicians, Cross-Dressers, and My Uterus” (due for completion in 2022). In 2018, she quit her job, sold her house, and boarded a plane to Scotland with a one-way ticket. After 2.5 years of travel, she settled in Munich, Germany, where she leads an online writing community and takes writing courses from the University of Iowa. You can find her work in The Abstract Elephant, and in GATHERING: A Women Who Submit Anthology.