Month 2 of my Year of Intentional Celibacy

In February, I started feeling like myself again. Less like one of my limbs had been cut off, or an essential organ ripped out. I threw myself into my personal projects. I went out, I stayed in, I met new people, I enjoyed my own company. I travelled. I texted my ex and survived to tell the story. I’ve been setting and maintaining boundaries left and right, even though it still feels a bit excruciating and often the lines are wobbly and permeable and they’re more like the membranes of cells that engulf each other and let things in and out and sometimes randomly collapse1 than like the sturdy walls of a building or fortress. But still.

Sometimes, I have felt lonely. And I’ve been reminded that people don’t really know how to talk about loneliness. In the year of 2026, if I tell a friend I’m depressed, they’re not going to tell me to meditate and find joy in the little things and appreciate this period in my life because one day, I’ll wish I had. And yet, when I tell someone I’m lonely, they’ll often respond by listing the merits of being single and independent, and advising me on ways to feel fulfilled even while alone.

Has anyone noticed there is no equivalent concept to loneliness that means “too loved, too supported, too much in the company of others”?

Up until a few decades ago, “independence” in the way we understand it now wasn’t a thing for most people. In many non-Western cultures, it still isn’t. I’d argue that humans, in general, are not meant to be “independent” and that the glorification of not needing anybody else to be happy is a byproduct of hyper-individualistic neoliberal capitalism.

It is essential that we, especially women, are able to survive alone. But that does not mean it is something we should all strive for, and that those who aren’t happy with being alone are somehow deficient and need to heal themselves of their desires.

See, my gripe isn’t with the fact that I am experiencing loneliness (or alone-ness), but with it being treated as something I shouldn’t feel sad about. A need for community and companionship is something deeply encoded into most (if not all) humans, and we should be allowed to feel pain when we lack it, the same way we would feel pain if we lacked food or shelter. Though I live in a system that allows me to survive being alone, I often find the expectation that I should also thrive alone to be unfair.

My craving for love and companionship has accompanied me for as long as I can remember, from my first intense crush at age 5, a series of co-dependent friendships throughout my youth, and throughout each of my adult relationships, wherein I twisted myself into new, suitable versions of myself everytime I felt the fear of collapse and loss and abandonment. Why should I be ashamed of that? Why should I twist myself yet again into being someone who “doesn’t need” a partner to feel fulfilled? How will shame help me learn to make healthier choices in my relationships in the future?

Yes, I've committed to a year of celibacy to pull myself out of toxic patterns that I've found myself repeating, and to nurture my relationships with myself and the world. But I would be lying if I said one of my motivations for doing this isn't the hope that afterwards, I'll be more ready and able to accept the kind of romantic love I really want for myself, and less likely to settle for things that won't make me happy. I'm not trying to become someone who doesn't need a relationship to feel fulfilled, who would be happy spending the rest of their life single. There are people for whom that works, but it's not what I want for myself, and I believe I deserve to live the life I want.

Loneliness has been a frequent companion in my life. I’m learning to let it be, to let it exist alongside all the other emotional experiences that make up being human. It will ebb and flow, sometimes threatening to drown me, throughout this year and probably my entire life. That’s okay. I’ve been getting better at swimming, anyway.

Well. Those were some thoughts, here are some things:

I’ve been spending a frankly ridiculous amount of time working on my website. Since last month, I’ve put up two new pages full of content: the Horse Rescue Centre and My World, which includes a fully functional travelogue (currently going back to 2022) and a lifelogue with a few autobiographical chapters from my youth. Currently working on a new page that I am so excited about I might pee myself.

I’ve been really into the idea of personal curriculums lately, and made myself a little sketching curriculum this month. During Week 1, I spent at least 30 minutes every day learning and practicing how to sketch trees (I watched a lot of YouTube tutorials). Week 2 was buildings and urban sketching week. On Week 3 I was travelling and had planned to put all my lessons into practice by doing a bunch of travel sketching, but by then I had kind of run out of steam and ended up barely doing anything.

I still learnt a lot, though! Here’s a few random practice pages from my everything-journal:

Now, I’ve started a Hamlet curriculum, but you’ll hear more about that next month. In February, I saw the movie Hamnet with some friends from my choir, and we were so blown away by it that we decided to start a book club and read the book Hamnet for our first meeting. I finished reading it a few days ago and am impatient to discuss it with everyone…

I kind of feel like that’s it. I’ve mostly just spent so much time coding my eyeballs are about to fall out. Please go look at my website (unless you are on your phone)!!! Lena Dunham literally said it’s “so cool very Angelfire”.

Nothing important really comes to mind other than the aforementioned Hamnets, which I would highly recommend. I’ve got a bit of a one-track mind these days.

I will shout-out this Substack post on personal curricula that was pretty inspiring. Learning things is so cool, guys.

On that note. It’s been fun. See you in the next one!