“Being Single Isn’t the Same as Being Alone”
If only rebooting your mindset were as easy as restarting your laptop. As part of a collection on shifting perspectives, writers share the struggles, revelations, and joys they experienced as they began to see themselves and the world around them from a different point of view—and experts weigh in with advice on how you can change your perspective on just about anything.
Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted two things: to write books and to find a great love. I was a born romantic, making Cinderella aprons out of curtains and sweeping the hearth, dreaming of the prince. My mom, an OG feminist, was disgruntled. “It’s so regressive,” she said, replacing my princess dresses with overalls.
As I grew, the pattern persisted. I got married at 23, when everyone else was partying in rooftop bars. I didn’t yearn for kids; I’d tossed my baby doll in a dumpster. But I had love—until my husband and I realized he didn’t understand why I wanted to write books instead of having children.
Cut to 20 years later. I’m a divorce?e. A novelist—that dream, thank God, has come true. A writing teacher, homeowner, dog mom to my beloved black Lab, Woodrow. I have the world’s most devoted friends. But sometimes I still feel less than because, despite a series of lovely relationships, I have no permanent partner. And with parents gone and siblings far-flung, no immediate family of my own.
Summer 2019 throws this into glaring relief. Woodrow, age 14, develops congestive heart failure. Every day, determined to keep him with me as long as he enjoys life, I carry his 85 pounds in a harness to the park bench across the street from our Boston apartment. There he enjoys his sniffs while I sit and fret. Woodrow’s care is physically challenging, not the kind you can ask friends for help with; I can’t call them morning and evening to help me get him upstairs or clean up his post-midnight accidents. Old questions seep up: Why didn’t I remarry? Why didn’t I have now-teenage children who, even if they reminded me how cringe I was, would still assist me with our old boy? I think of Carmela Soprano commenting on a Christmas card: “Pictures of their dogs. It’s sad with no children.”
Then something extraordinary happens. Woodrow’s nickname is “The George Clooney of Dogs” because of his magnetic appeal; even with his snowy muzzle and four teeth left, he tractor-beams people in. First our dog-parent friends come, bringing coffee for me, canine ice cream for Woodrow. Then, total strangers. A Pennsylvania farm couple spends their 55th anniversary with us. A lovely Italian tourist sits in the dirt with Woodrow and cries over his “special soul.” People help me carry him home, stopping traffic—in Boston, a death-defying proposition. One December day when Woodrow is too weak to stand, a woman appears out of the snow, helps me lift him, and disappears—leaving not even a footprint.
When Woodrow died, at home on his bed, I went off a cliff. For 48 hours I was insensible, crying even in my sleep. But I wasn’t alone for a moment. People sat shiva with me, bringing food, flowers, cards. They reminisced about Woodrow’s adventures. Nobody said, “He was just a dog.”
If you have a partner and a family, you’re lucky. So am I. I’ll never give up on finding my forever partner, but I have love. I’ve had it all along. Friend love, neighbor love, community love—dog love. Love of goodness in the world. Whoever has love in their life, of any kind, is never alone.
—Jenna Blum is the author of the novels Those Who Save Us and The Stormchasers, and the memoir Woodrow on the Bench.
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