I'm using my company health insurance to cover therapy sessions once per week (I don't really feel like it's required at this point, but I pay for it anyway and what better way could I be spending 45 minutes on a Friday?) and I was musing over a thought:

This summer in the UK has been unusually warm and consistent, and at the same time I've been reading books like J.L. Carr's "A Month in the Country", lots of PG Wodehouse, "Wind in the Willows" - and they all inhabit this fictional endless and perfect summer. The trees are heavy, the skies cloudless, and nothing changes as our protagonists explore their world.

A Month in the Country was a recommendation for me out of left field, but resounded in such a significant way - a man out of trauma, finding his feet with tiny iterative steps. A story of healing and growth amongst an unchanging rural idyll. Experiences like finding (male) companionship in unexpected places, sitting quietly, focusing on peace.

However, the work is finally done and the season does eventually change, and that is the end of the book. It calls to mind for me that this endless summer will eventually end, that sitting on my road under a parasol and watching the day go by will be ushered away by autumn, and that I'm sure at some point I will want to pursue another relationship.

I thought that was a significant observation, but relaying it to my therapist she challenged that notion - the sense of liminal place of this period; that I am waiting with held breath until the next drama to unfold shows an implicit thought that right now 'isn't real', or that I am only real in the context of a relationship. As if this moment is an epigraph or illustration between two chapters: pleasant but lacking substance.

It really shocked me to think that I've always divided the chapters of my life by my relationships, and so being without one feels like an interim stage - pleasant, fulfilling, enjoyable, and so on, but always considered as transient. Calling this out to me, has made me think a lot on it.

I think other than the obvious point to consider this time as equally important as being in a relationship (or indeed, not using relationships as a chapter delineation at all), I am happier, more fulfilled, more peaceful, and simply having a far better time as a single person than I was for large parts of my relationship(s), and that deserves recognition. Secondly, maybe this change in attitude is (a more) true acceptance of internal validation and independence than simply not being sad about a previous relationship.

I hope this was or is helpful to somebody, it feels like a massively significant change for my mindset.