On filling my own cup, and the inelegant process of making this decision

"I'm not really interested. I think I'm getting comfortable filling my own cup."

One Saturday night, on a trip outside of Vilnius, after a long train ride and many hours of walking, one of my colleagues (who was the first person I told about my breakup after arriving in Europe) asked if I plan to start dating again once I return to Manila. I have about two weeks left of my three month secondment, and we were chatting lightly about how I arrived two and a half months prior with my heart in pieces. My three year relationship ended exactly a month before I got on that flight.

My response was met with the expected amount of support and validation. "That is such a wise decision," she declared. "I'm sure you will not have any problem meeting someone when you are ready."

The truth is, that wise decision didn’t feel good to make. It was a turbulent process to get to this point, and it is true what they say about progress not being linear or consistent.

I've written at length about my heartbreak and the grief that followed. Those thousands of words stand as irrefutable proof that no one prepares you for the kind of pain that comes as a result of losing someone who truly loved you.

Pulling myself out of that misery and making conscious effort to make myself happy (and less inclined to sleep all day) had been neither harmonious nor graceful. Oftentimes, I was in conflict with myself.

“Is it hard on you?” she asked.

“Is what hard?”

“Suddenly being on your own after being a couple.”

“Sometimes,” I said honestly.

“But maybe going through that kind of tough, lonely experience is necessary when you’re young? Part of the process of growing up?”

“You think so?”

“The way surviving hard winters makes a tree grow stronger, the growth rings inside it tighter.”

— Excerpt from Haruki Murakami's Men Without Women

I was terrified of being alone. There is no denying that. "He wasn't just a boyfriend. Everything I did in my post-covid life, I had him by my side. That includes most of my adult life, by the way. He was also my best friend, my family." These were the words I used to describe the relationship to my college best friend, finally gathering enough courage to tell her about it. It was a conversation I had avoided for over three months for fear that recounting how it happened would break me for the thousandth time. Sure, I was crying every night and still very much heartbroken even without talking about it. But it doesn't count when no one knows, right?

Besides, this is someone who has me on a pedestal, and believes I can do anything. This girl would not think, even for a second, that I would need anyone, especially a guy. But it's just the truth. It is never intentional, but no one is safe when someone's gentle presence and expression of care have become constant in your everyday life. Without noticing, you forget how to do things on your own. Eating out, watching a movie, even taking a walk alone - these were the mountains I had to conquer when I was newly single. The silence of my phone didn't feel peaceful. It was deafening, a small but insistent reminder that something, someone is missing.

My friends joked (constantly) that I'm living in a romcom; earth-shattering heartbreak followed by a big move to Europe. With how far I'm traveling, and how much people I'm meeting, surely, there is someone new, right?

"He's tall and has a nice smile. Confident but a little timid. Reads books, has good taste in music, but also athletic. Oh, and he should find me funny. That's a requirement." There was a brief period when I searched for him everywhere. In busy airports, in parks and museums, even in line for ice cream or while walking on cobblestone streets. It wasn't like I was desperately looking. But I kept an eye out on the off chance that maybe, just maybe.

The sharp shift in perspective came shortly after. I was moving on, slowly making peace with the outcome I have since accepted was truly best for both of us - but still very much flooded with memories of the life we gave up, of connection with someone who, strictly speaking, should no longer exist in my present. My ability to remember things in great detail didn't help either. Everyday, the internal monologue in my brain reminded me that the situation I was in was a byproduct of my own choices. I put myself out there, chose to build a life with someone, embraced them to my core, planned a future together, and look where that got me. I thought, "You know what? I don't wanna share my life anymore. Being alone isn't so bad. I can pack up and leave whenever I want."

On the other hand, everyone knows that I am a lover of people. Not only in the romantic sense. I draw strength from nurturing relationships, friendships, from forging connections. I care about others, and I care deeply. Not one of my closest friends believed me when I said I'd rather be alone. Frankly, I'm not too convinced myself.

Luckily, the direction at which life unfolds is never limited to just two sides of one coin.

I am now at the phase of healing that no one claps for. When friends stop asking how I’m holding up, and the “are you okay?”s turn into “you are glowing!”, when my hair looks better, and laugh sounds fuller. People no longer see me and my heartbreak as a fragile combination. They assume I’m doing better because I look the part. The good news is, they’re right.

I’ve done the job of sitting with my pain, studying it instead of pushing it away. We sat side by side through many sleepless nights and tired mornings, in books that didn’t make sense, and music that made my chest ache. I’ve put up with it long enough to learn what it came to teach.

And what I learned is that the journey of learning to be by myself is never just a placeholder, a waiting room until the next relationship comes. It is a self-reliant ecosystem where I can exist - selfish and unapologetic, where I can look at the present straight in the eye and say, “I only have me, and that is everything I need.”

I know now that I can squeeze as much as I want out of life on my own. I don't need anyone to go with me to the ballet, Swan Lake and Nutcracker would be just as intricate and beautiful. The literature I read will just be as rich, movies as entertaining, and art as meaningful even if there is no one to turn to during that experience. And while I've had enough of solo travel for the foreseeable future, taking trips with friends is just as exciting and intoxicating as traveling with a significant other.

And if one day, he finds me, in a crowd of people who know the difference between Monet and Manet, at the ballet, walking in the city after a yoga class, or within the familiar comfort of a bookstore in an unfamiliar city, maybe then I can pour from a cup of overflow.