The Lonely Guide to Being Alone: 6 Steps and a Sit Down
My ex-boyfriend’s sister is getting married. And I’m getting a ready meal for one.
My ex-boyfriend’s sister is getting married.
She’s two years younger than I am, the sweetest girl in this or any neighbouring universe, and she met her now fiance about a year after I started dating her brother.
Then, three years ago, I broke up with her brother (we’re still best pals, don’t you worry. He made me a cinnamon Danish milkshake last week. Love comes in a variety of flavours). His sister and her boyfriend did not break up three years ago.
And now — last night — they got engaged.
Have you ever felt your heart glisten with joy and shatter from sadness simultaneously? Feels like cracking an Easter egg under water. You’re floating around riding this wave of happiness (which is what I felt for her and her fiance, times 768,000) but also there’s this pressure sidling up to your surface until you’re flooded with wet, sticky, loneliness (which is what I felt as a side effect of finding out about her engagement, plus the existing weight of loneliness that I’d been lugging around for a few days already bearing down on my chest). I was so happy for them, I really was, I promise you. And I still and forever am.
