The relationship is still relatively new – we are coming up to a year – a major feat considering nothing lasted more than 30 days during that ‘dry spell’. And due to the fact that I have lived in four cities in eight years, I keep running into people who are unaware of my newfound joy. But here’s the thing: I have noticed a little behavioral tick of mine when telling people I’m in a relationship that is going swimmingly. I feel the need to somehow drop into the conversation, subtlely or otherwise, that before this I was single – FOR A LONG TIME.  I even seem to do this when I meet new people (see paragraph two…). It’s like I don’t want them to think that I’m some smug, loved-up fool. I need them to know that I have done my time, paid my dues, and thus have done something to earn this ungodly amount of happiness that has been bestowed upon me. Maybe it is the result of looking through my green-tinted glasses at those annoyingly cozy couples all these years. Maybe it’s because I’m Australian and we have to undercut everything. Or maybe it’s that I don’t quite believe it myself…

Whatever the reason for the relationship guilts, I don’t want to make excuses anymore. I don’t need to qualify my happiness. Nor is it my job to make others feel less threatened by me or better about themselves by justifying it. I can’t. As a wise woman once said: haters will hate. But the converse is true, too. Lovers will love. And I wanna be one of those people because I deserve it. I deserve to be treated with respect and kindness and generosity and to be supported and loved unconditionally. We all do.  It doesn’t need to be earned by heartbreak or loss.  You are not deemed worthy only once you’ve walked through the fire. Nor does one person’s happiness mean there’s any less happy to go around.  Love is love is love – whether it comes to you straight out of the gates or later in the game.

So if, when I meet you, I tell you about my miraculous emergence from the wilderness of singledom, feel free to hug me and say, “I know sweetheart, and you’re doing just fine.”