I’ve been single for about a year now.

Just before that, I was seeing someone for about six months in a whirlwind fling that seemed just so full of passion and lovely feelings. My heart cracked when we broke up—it’s never nice looking ahead to what feels like a whole lotta loneliness. I realised at the time that for all my “Independent Woman” ranting, I actually really liked being in a relationship, I liked being loved and surrounded by those warm, fuzzy, coddled feelings—who doesn’t?

So there I was, 32 years old and single again. Possibly, one of the only single people left in my huge family of cousins; and one of the only single girls left in my large gaggle of friends.

I set out, for the rest of the year with my heart wide open, if a little desperate, looking for love and romance again.

And you know what? I found it.

Gabrielle Bernstein says a lovely thing in her book Spirit Junkie, which goes like this:

[A Course in Miracles by Marianne Williamson] teaches us to make our brotherly relationships (friendship) more romantic and our romantic relationships more brotherly. […] Because I now found romance and sparks within my companionable relationships, I was able to take even more pressure off men. I now understood the true meaning of having romantic brotherly relationships.

I started to find that my stomach would do excited leapfrogs when I knew I’d be meeting a best friend for tea—almost the same way it used to feel butterflies before going on a date.

I would thrill to find handwritten letters from old friends around the world in my mailbox when I got home at the end of a long day—almost the same way I used to feel when I was gifted something by a boy.

I would spend hours curled up on a sofa giggling into my phone as I exchanged funny conversations with a friend over text—feeling almost the same, if not more, girlish joy that I did when a boy I liked messaged me.

I had spent almost all my life thinking of romance as something that necessarily involved a) a man b) flowers / chocolate / gifts c) beautiful declarations of word or d) all of the above. But as I wised up to reality, I did a quick check with a dictionary and found it defined as:

“a novel or other prose narrative depicting heroic or marvellous deeds, pageantry, etc., usually in a historical or imaginary setting;

the colorful world, life, or conditions depicted in such tales;

a baseless, made-up story, usually full of exaggeration or fanciful invention;

a romantic spirit, sentiment, emotion, or desire.”