Amy Roullier is a British writer and author of Silent Reflections of a Fragile Heart. Through her blog, she challenges the negative stereotypes surrounding being single, while candidly sharing her experiences with mental health, personal losses, and the complex, often misunderstood realities of adulthood.
People say to embrace your thirties, as your thirties are when life truly begins. It’s a more empowered age than your twenties, being older, wiser and more experienced. You should feel at ease, you should feel comfortable. By now, you should know yourself, and know what you are doing and where you are headed. But what if instead, you feel trapped in uncertainty and are questioning your very life’s purpose? …
For six years I’ve lived alone. Now, I’m moving in with someone. And I’m finding it hard to let go of the life I’ve lived for so long as it teeters on the edge of becoming ours instead of just mine. I find myself reminiscing about all the things I’ve loved about living solo. The simple pleasures; being able to spread myself across the whole bed, dinner whenever/and whatever I …
My definition of love used to be this: Love meant giving everything. Losing yourself completely and willingly. Love was sacrifice. If you die, we die together. Love was a fairy-tale where nothing else mattered as long as we kept the flame alive. Love meant compromise of self— letting go of all other connections, pouring everything into just one. Love was never calm, never stable. It was lightning, fire, and chaos. Unpredictable, volatile, burning so brightly …
I’ve come to learn that being alone is powerfully compelling, once you’ve reframed alone time as not something that has happened to you, but as a time to make things happen for you. And there is an unexpected beauty in being alone, especially in public. I used to see alone time as an an involuntary circumstance forced upon me. A sign that I wasn’t wanted. Uncomfortable and lonely. That’s what …
It’s that time of year again, where people get reflective and look back over the past twelve months, social media feeds go crazy with people posting their best bits (queue dramatic music backdrop to a carefully curated reel) and it seems everyone is on the ‘New Year, New You’ bandwagon. But I came here to say only this: It’s absolutely fine if all you accomplished this year was simply surviving. …
Happiness Doesn’t Start with Someone Else—It Begins When You Truly Meet Yourself. Or does it? It’s certainly not the story I’ve been told. Meet someone, settle down, get married, have kids. Happiness and joy is found through others. When I reached my mid-thirties as a singleton, the pressure of these societal goals came to a head. How could I ever be happily single, when happiness is only truly possible when not? …
Six years ago, my job was predominantly social. I’d natter with total strangers, host presentations in front of hundreds of people and whilst never totally comfortable, I was pretty good at speaking in front of an audience. But for the past few years I’ve been working from home, and something has changed. Recently, I stood in front of a handful of people with more watching online. I had nothing to do, …
People need connection. People want to be included, to be liked, to feel part of a community. Connected with others, validated in their actions, life choices and who they are. But in this day and age of social media and the internet, are we really able to achieve connection in the way we hope for and need? I’ve been wondering about this very topic a lot lately. If you’ve read …
You might be reaching out for forgiveness.You might be testing the waters,wondering if I could forgive enoughto let you back in.But I am empowered by the act of no action,the choice to let you pass bywithout any need to understandwhat you want this time. No part of me feels compelledto explore why you’ve returned.There are no regret here, only gratitudethat something ended which was never right.I’m thankful for the lesson …
I know that I should love my body for all that it is, and not over-ride how I look now with how I hope to look one day. But body acceptance is hard. A few years ago, I became very aware that this vessel has got to get me through another forty plus years. But I hadn’t treated it that well up to that point. I started considering nutrition and …
