Single in Midlife

Episode 1: Early years

I was never single for longer than a year since I was 18. A few flings, a few relationships, and one marriage/divorce. That’s it. And every woman in my family tree had exactly one man in her entire life - which feels… suffocating and depressing, because it actually was.

That was the past. Maybe not for everyone, but absolutely for the majority back then. And the result? Profound unhappiness rooted deep in their bones. Faces shaped by frustration, by a life half-lived. A tiny existence trapped in a shoebox.
That’s my family history.

Charming, huh?

I broke that spell the moment I could.

My first boyfriend was a few years older - which felt huge because I was 18 and he was 27. He was kind, yes, but also living that same shoebox life. Jumping from job to job with no direction, no passion, no real ambition other than: get paid, save for a flat (he still lived with his parents), and then the predictable sequence - marriage, kids, etc.
Thank God I didn’t bite that hook.

We met the summer I worked my first job in a cafeteria. He started coming every day “for a drink”… which really meant “for me”. Back then my dream was to become a singer, so while my friends went off to university, I planned to go to Madrid (the capital, the big city) and just… try. Honestly, my plan was “maybe someone magically discovers me in the street.” So naïve.

I told my new/first boyfriend my plan and, since he had none of his own, he agreed to come with me. (Let’s be honest: he would’ve done anything to keep fucking me. I was gorgeous and he was approaching 30.)
So off we went, late September. We lasted exactly three days in a cheap hostel.

The moment we arrived, I felt like I was carrying him on my shoulders. I told myself, “I can’t do what I want with this weight”… but the truth is, I had no clue what I was doing either. No idea where to go, who to see, or how anything worked. Zero.

We stayed together a year and a half anyway, and had lots of sex. He loved blowjobs in the car (and anywhere, really).
And then one day…