One of my favorite poets/ contemporary authors, Joy Sullivan, offered a prompt to write about modern romance— any twist that felt appropriate. This piece is what came forth. It sits in clear contrast to my previous post, where I wrote about parting ways with this same person. And yet—here we are. Life is brief and blooming and strange. I won’t apologize for following joy when it calls, or for the occasional birdlike nature of my own heart—ever flitting about.

When I left the cocoon of my childhood home for college, I made a promise to myself: I wouldn’t touch alcohol in this lifetime—or a man's penis until I was married. Sobriety and virginity felt deeply important, shaped by the conservative values my parents had instilled in me.

Two decades later, I found myself unmarried, in a toxic relationship that had nonetheless gifted me two beautiful children, and regularly drinking too much to escape the ways I had learned to gaslight myself. I justified staying in a life that felt completely out of alignment, clinging to the belief that somehow, it was all my fault.

This year marks three years since I began choosing clarity. I started by quitting drinking, and then, in quick succession, I left my marriage. We had gotten married in what, in hindsight, was a last-ditch effort to salvage a relationship already beyond repair.

Leaving was monumental—especially after a lifetime of fawning over men. For as long as I can remember, I believed my worth was tethered to the approval and adoration of the opposite sex. In my twenties, I threw myself at the feet of men, hoping for praise, allowing them to touch me in ways that degraded and devalued me. Sometimes, they took what they wanted despite my protests. My now-ex-husband was one of the first to commit his attention and energy to me, and somehow, that—along with an adorable man-bun—blinded me to the ugliness beneath the surface of our “playfulness.”

After the birth of my two girls, something inside me began to shift. Every choice I made grew sharper, clearer. Instead of fumbling through life with a wobbly compass, I could now ask myself: Would I be proud to have my children repeat this choice? Could I explain it to them? Would it bring me joy to see them live in a similar way? This was its own kind of romance—pure, searingly clear.

When I asked myself if I’d be proud for them to emulate the relationship I had with their father, the answer was painfully obvious: no. This was not the version of love I wanted to model for my daughters.

After our separation, I embarked on a painful, radical journey of self-love. I began dating myself—not in the cocktails-and-roses kind of way I once imagined, but in the quiet, daily act of choosing myself over the comfort of old habits. I fumbled through therapy, medicine-work, solitude, journaling, meditation, inner-child work, Shamanic journeying. I cried. I cried so many tears I had once pressed beneath a heavy veneer of rage. I became softer.

Much of this work happened in a literal closet under the stairs—my own self-imposed Harry Potter quarters. I’d transformed that little story space in our tiny one-bedroom house into a little fairy nook for my girls, but also, for me, a sacred refuge for writing and journeying, praying and sobbing.

As a counterpoint to this quiet personal revolution, one of the most joyful—and still terrifying—parts of my unraveling has been learning to open, even just a little, in the presence of others. For a long time, I stood on the sidelines of ecstatic dance, both drawn to it and scared of what it might unlock. The idea of moving freely, without pretense, felt too vulnerable. Too naked. But eventually, I showed up. And then I kept showing up. Slowly, something in me began to thaw.

On that dance floor, I started to feel the edges of my aliveness again—not just the pain, but the joy, too. I let my body lead for once, not my fear or my mind. I showed up in presence, and motion, and feeling. And somewhere in that authenticity, I met a man—ten years my junior—who is now my boyfriend.

It’s not what I expected from this chapter of my life, or from my first real relationship post-marriage. Someone so young, so clearly in a different place in life. And yet, here he is: evolved, tender, gentle, receptive, and abundantly kind—so much my ex was not.

I don’t expect to be with him forever. He wants to travel, to have his own children, to live so much of the life I already lived prior to meeting him. And that’s part of what makes it so beautiful. For the first time in my life, I’m in a relationship where I don’t need anything from the other person. My biological clock isn't ticking. I’m not looking for financial support or a roommate to split the bills. I’m here for presence, for touch, for connection. There’s a deep freedom in loving without expectation or timeline.

He meets me in my softness. He listens. He sees me. He witnesses the daily things I’ve long called ugly and names the beauty in them. He has become a mirror for the goodness I so long prayed to find in someone else—only he’s shown it to me in myself. Loving him has become a portal into loving me.

This lifetime, I expect my greatest love story to be the one I create with myself, and other relationships have been a vehicle to developing that love. My ex-husband taught me to love myself by forcing me to advocate for myself—fiercely, even through discomfort and lies. My daughters taught me to love myself by clarifying my values and desires. And this man has taught me to love myself by loving me exactly as I am. Not a version of me, but the whole messy, wild, unfolding bundle I am becoming.

And our impermanence has allowed me to hold that lightly—not as an attachment to him, but as a gift to myself.

On one of my journeys, it came to me in this language: he is a delivery of love from the universe. Not one I’m meant to keep or cling to or ask anything of—not praise, not permanence, not a hand in marriage. He is love made manifest. And like all sacred gifts, he’s meant to be felt, embodied, and then released into the wind— to curl around other women in the breeze as they dance beachside, perhaps reeling, too, from their own journey of self-discovery.

This is the shape of modern romance, at least for me: not a contract, not a destination, not a cure, but a container for presence, a practice in being with what is, a celebration of love for love’s sake—without needing it to last forever to mean something. And in this wild, fleeting, luminous chapter, I am in love, not just with him, but with the way love has taught me to belong to myself.