The 1st January

By Erin Deborah Waks

It’s the 1st January 2024 and you’re going to sleep happily, with a man you think you almost love wrapped around you, your bodies entwined as you feel his deep warmth enveloping you. You know you will wake up with gentle kisses, on your forehead, your lips, your heart. You feel his mesmerised gaze on you, as though enraptured with you, as though he’ll never feel about another woman the way he feels about you, as though you are his perfection itself. It’s an immensely powerful feeling. You always want to feel like this. You always want him to look at you like this. You’ve never felt more beautiful, more special, more loved.

Enjoy it, darling. Revel in the slow kisses, curl up in his arms while you can. Make the most of the early days of blossoming love. Because this love will not last. This is not the love of a man who will see you this way forever. This is the love of a young man, a man figuring his own way in this world, a man who truly wants to love you in totality but who can’t. A man who will not always be able to make you feel that way. One day, this man will not even be able to look you in the eye. It will not be instinctual for him to kiss you on the forehead. He will not smile and look lovingly at you. He will not hold you tight in photos. 

You’ll keep those photos. They remind you not of what you lost, but of what you realised was hurting you more than being alone ever will. They remind you of the first man you ever loved; the first to treat you like you’re special; the first to set his alarm five minutes early so he can hold you for an extra moment at the start of your days; the first to teach you how to be handled with the gentleness you will come to learn is the one great thing you seek from love. 

You will remember - sadly at times, fondly at others - the way he made you feel when he held you with that overpowering tenderness you thought would make your heart explode. You will wonder how that feeling, perhaps the strongest you’ve ever felt, was not enough for the two of you to last. You will remember, then, the moments in between, gradually elongating, where you felt not like that beautiful goddess, but like a burden, an obligation, a chore.

You will need to learn that it is not your fault. It’s not because you didn’t give him enough love, didn’t give him enough space. It’s not because you weren’t good enough in bed, because you weren’t pretty enough, because you weren’t thin enough. You’ll learn, this year, that you are mesmerising, perfect, lovable. One man’s decision not to love you means nothing at all. Even if he was a good man. Even if it takes you time to comprehend how it could be possible he didn’t seem to want the magic that existed, at moments, between you.

You will think leaving him will break you in half; and you will see how wrong you were. Leaving will mean ending the cycle in which you’ve lived most of your life. The cycle which led you down the pathway to uncertain men, half-hearted love. You will start to take men at their word. You will not make excuses any longer.

You will learn not just that you deserve more, but that your body cannot sustain what is wrong for you. It craves real love, partnership, deep affection, commitment, choice. When facing someone who is wrong for you, your body will warn you, scream at you, until you listen.

You will learn the valuable lesson of listening to your gut, your body. That if what you’re being told is true is different to what you feel is true, the disconnect will mean nothing makes sense. It will teach you - momentarily - not to trust yourself. The anxiety that stems from that will be uncontrollable. But once you see things clearly again, you will have newfound faith in you.

You will remember all the things you love. You will show new men around art galleries. You won’t pay for a single glass of wine the whole of winter - but you’ll drink many. You’ll go to so many new bars, new restaurants, new coffee shops, and you’ll re-learn that you need do nothing at all to be wanted. That you can’t nice your way into ‘achieving’ love. You’ll turn more men down than you ever thought you would have the opportunity to do. Each time, you will wonder a little more if you are the problem - for having expectations that are wrong, for wanting intimacy in place of pure physicality. Each time, you will remind yourself you are not.

You will work hard at building yourself up. You will not tear your character apart every day. You will figure out again what peace means to you - and what disturbs it. You will have coffee and croissants in bed on a Sunday morning. Sometimes, you’ll miss the first man you did that with. Most of the time, you'll be too busy feeling at peace. And reading your book.

You will build a life that is missing something for now, something key; a soul mate. But it will be a beautiful life nonetheless. It is a void you know will one day be filled, but not a gap you are so desperate to cover that you will let another man who doesn’t want to fight for you attempt to fill. It is a hole that will stay in the back of your mind, but you will slowly refocus on filling it with the other things that give your life meaning.

You will know love. Overpowering love. The kind that seeps into your bones. 

Oh, and, darling, rest assured - you’ll learn plenty of other men are good in bed too. Promise.