Hello, my name is Shelby and I’m a recovering serial monogamist. It’s been four months since my last relationship. Things have been surprisingly good. I’m enjoying my own company and finding my voice again. I laugh at my own jokes and am caring less and less about the opinions of others. I’m beginning to hear my old friend intuition and feel surer of myself as each day goes by.

It can be unsettling how much I enjoy my own company. Visions of me in thirty years flash by, surrounded by animals, trees, and not another human in sight. The funny thing is the older I get, the less unsettling that notion becomes.

I’ve been dating for over a decade now. Out of that decade, I’ve been single less than 30% of the time. Not one relationship mind you, but a slew of back to back to back relationships.

Some lasted a couple weeks and some a couple years. None overlapped, but some happened only weeks, or even days, apart.

I carried on, beaten and battered by love, wondering why my relationships were so exhausting as I lugged suitcases of emotional baggage and dumped it at the door of every new relationship.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

I couldn’t take it anymore. It was all just to…heavy. I had to let go.

Let go of that high school sweetheart you broke up with before going to college, who is married now with kids in your hometown.

Let go of that fraternity jock who knew how to handle your sass but you took for granted.

Let go of that festival kid who never comes down.

Let go of that random two-week love that ended as quickly as it began.

Let go of that one who truly broke your heart for the first time when he showed you the disease of addiction.

Let go of that soulmate who was your best friend and still is, even if you two could never figure out how to work as a couple.

Let go of that poor soul lost in a sea of alcoholism and narcissism.

They may have kept pieces of you, but they are not you. YOU are you. You are the only one who will be there for your entire life, beginning to end. It might be a good idea to be on good terms with yourself.

Are you still healing from your relationship? Are you healing from multiple at the same time? When do you know when you’re ready again?

I sense a post on self-love in the foreseeable future…just in time for Singles Awareness Day!