By Rainesford Stauffer
The first time I realized I was entirely by myself, I was sitting on the floor of my apartment eating frozen pizza and drinking wine out of a coffee mug. It was ten o’clock at night, and after spending the bulk of the evening trying to squeeze an oversized coffee table out of my car, up the stairs, and into my apartment, I’d given up, leaving it stuck there with the door half open. I blinked back tears, and wished I had someone to call to help me.
It was a small moment, but it was a fork in the road. It could have been a chance to lean into independence: a moment in which I wasn’t alone, but autonomous, part of a new life chapter in which I was confident and capable and answered to no one about anything.
Except it wasn’t. I didn’t feel the surge of independence I’d hoped for. I was in the middle of what would become a year-long break from having a personal life, and all I felt was alone.
My self-imposed hiatus started off as an accident. If someone had told me at the beginning how I’d spend the next year — no dates, few texts, next to no plans — it would have seemed unfathomable to me. But then the breakup happened, and I set the metaphorical (and…
