Let’s chat about the perks of being single and how we can embrace our freedom! In this episode, I dive into all the fun and spontaneous things we can do because we’re not tied down. I share some personal stories, like my recent whirlwind trip to Canada where I got to see Morgan Wallen and explore Banff. Trust me, being single means I can eat cheesecake for dinner in bed without any judgment—who needs a partner when you can have a love affair with dessert? So, let’s celebrate those little joys and remember that our singlehood gives us the freedom to do what we want, when we want. What’s something you’ve enjoyed recently that you might not have done if you were coupled up?

Let's get real about singlehood! Being single isn’t just about the absence of a partner; it’s about embracing the freedom that comes with it. In this chat, I shared some juicy insights from my own life, highlighting moments that truly reflect the perks of being solo. One big theme was spontaneity. I talked about my decision to hit the trails for a hike after a busy week, showcasing how being single allows us to make these on-the-fly choices without needing to check in with anyone else. Imagine just grabbing your gear and heading out, no strings attached!

I also shared thoughts on how being single can sometimes feel like being unsung heroes in our own lives. We don’t always have someone to celebrate our small wins with, yet those wins matter. From enjoying a blissful solo meal of cheesecake (which, let’s be honest, is a major win in itself) to taking time for self-reflection, these moments are crucial. I delved into how much we often overlook the small joys and how they can make our lives richer. This episode is all about recognizing and embracing those little moments of joy that we can create for ourselves.

So, I invite you to reflect on your own experiences and think about the little things you've done recently that brought you joy while being single. Let's not just survive this phase but thrive in it!

Takeaways:

• Being single gives us the freedom to make spontaneous decisions without checking in with anyone else, like going on a hike at the last minute.
• Small joys often go unnoticed, but they can significantly improve our lives and self-care routines when we take the time to acknowledge them.
• We can indulge in guilty pleasures, like eating cheesecake for dinner, without feeling the pressure to cook or share meals with someone else.
• Every little action we take while single, big or small, can be a way to celebrate our independence and treat ourselves well.

Links referenced in this episode:

• allaboutbeingsingle.com
• allaboutbeingsingle@gmail.com

What's something that you're able to do because you are single and maybe you wouldn't get a chance to do if you were coupled up.

Welcome to the first ever single Shorty episode of All About Being Single.

I'm Violeta, your host.

So I did realize that I don't share as much personal examples with you as I probably should be.

A lot of like my day to day life that I think exemplifies some, some of the stuff.

Well, all of the stuff that I talk about on the podcast and what I was thinking about is that I know some of the episodes have been kind of longer and I've been thinking that maybe I can try to alternate between like a longer full length episode talking about a certain topic and then give you a single shorty episode that either covers that topic and maybe explains a little bit more or provides more examples from my own personal life or it can be on a whole other topic that just kind of comes to my mind about some of the things that I've been doing the last, you know, few weeks or that last week or since the last time we had a single shorty episode.

But so even if we don't alternate between like a full length and a single shorty, I'm gonna try to at least every few weeks do a single shorty episode.

And for this very first one, since we are not anybody's like top priority as single people, unless you obviously have kids that might be a little bit different.

Even with that, I guess it really depends on how old the kids are.

And usually the parent is more treats the child as their first priority and the child doesn't always treat the parent as their first priority.

And so next week I will actually talk about what it's like not being anybody's top first priority.

So it's not a topic I'm necessarily excited to talk about, but I think it's a very important one and I know you will resonate a lot with the topic.

So tune in next week.

And because we're not anybody's priority, I think that sometimes we maybe don't really get as much of a chance to, to share our wins and like small little joys of the day.

Cuz sometimes, you know, some of us do have enough friends where we can share like the big wins, but we might not really get to share the small joys that we get to have throughout our days.

So I recently went on a vacation with one of my girlfriends and I'm not going to talk about the vacation on here too much.

We Went to Canada to see Morgan Wallen play in Edmonton.

It was his second, second to last show I think of the tour.

And then we drove down to Banff, which I've been wanting to go to for so long.

But again that's a huge win for me.

So that's not even a small daily joy.

That's a huge win.

And it was so beautiful out there.

The weather was perfect, it was like in the 60s, 70s, it was just the whole trip was great, but the trip was very like go, go, go.

We had so many things to do, we had to drive long distances almost daily.

And so I didn't really get much sleep on the trip and we missed our flight the first day and had to sleep at the Toronto airport and I really couldn't sleep.

So I basically walked the Toronto airport for like five hours.

And then again the rest of the trip was very much go, go, go.

So we would get to our next destination or next hotel either super late or like in the middle day.

But then we had to basically just change quickly, get ready, brush our teeth and then go to the next three thing we were doing.

I basically only maybe got about 15 hours of sleep throughout like the four day trip, which is not like me.

I get pretty good sleep every day.

I'm very cautious to try to make sure I get my sleep and try to go to bed around the same time and wake up around the same time each day.

So when I got back home I was supposed to actually cook because I was supposed to get back home early in the day on Monday and I was off like my actual 9 to 5 job that day.

But because we missed a flight and I had to pay extra money to get on another flight, I took like the bus and then the metra on the way back home which took I mean so many hours to get where I live cuz I live in the Chicago suburbs.

And so I didn't get back home till like 3 or 4pm and I had to edit one of these episodes actually so that I was able to get it out for you guys last Tuesday.

But so I didn't have enough time to meal plan that day like I was supposed to as well.

And I was just so tired and again didn't get that much sleep.

So what I did the remainder.

I think I did this for like 4 days straight.

I ate cheesecake for dinner in bed for like four nights straight.

And it was amazing.

It was so nice.

And by the way, if my future ex husband is listening, cheesecake is the way to my heart.

So I love any kinds of cheesecake.

I don't care if it comes with farmer's cheese, cream cheese, goat cheese.

Just kidding.

Goat cheese is not the goat of cheesecake.

That sounds disgusting.

But just about any kind of cheesecake is top notch.

Love them.

It's my absolute favorite dessert.

And there's a place, there's a coffee shop by my house that makes really, really good like kinder cheesecake.

Top notch.

Probably gonna eat that for dinner again today now.

But anyhow, so I get to eat my cheesecake for dinner every night.

And if I was coupled up, I would probably not be doing that because usually, you know, couples either eat together and you know, sometimes couples cook together because that is a nice way of connecting a little bit more.

You know, it's not the norm to eat your dinner in your bed, but when you're single, you can do that.

You can do whatever the you want to do.

But yeah, I'll let you propose to me if you get me cheesecake for our first date.

So if you're listening, cheesecake truly is the way to my heart.

Not goat cheesecake.

Let's not get carried away.

And another day.

And this was the Sunday after I got back.

After the Sunday after I got back from the trip, I was working on this podcast actually.

But it took me way longer than what I thought it was going to take to record and then edit the episode.

And like after I was done with the podcast, I mean, it took way longer.

I think I wasn't done till like 2 or 3pm on a Sunday.

And I just was like, you know what, I don't want to do anything else for the rest of the day, but just go to like a nice hike.

Hike.

And I do live in the Midwest, so there's not that many hiking, like real hiking places around me.

But there is this place called Starved Rock State park.

And I really want to go out there.

And it's only like an hour and some change away from where I live.

And I was just like, yep, I'm just gonna go.

Like, even though it's super late in the day and it's gonna take me a while.

Cause I'm sure I'll probably stop and pee someplace.

But I really wanna go.

And so I'm just gonna go.

And if I was in a relationship, Sundays usually is like the day that I like to relax and that I do like to hang out with my person.

And so we might have already had plans or, you know, we might have had plans with their friends or my friends or just with each other.

And maybe I wouldn't have been able to just on a whim, decide to go on this hike.

And an hour, almost an hour and a half away from where I live.

I maybe wouldn't have want to let them down, and maybe I wouldn't want to cancel on them just so I could go on this hike.

And maybe they wouldn't want to go with me.

But basically I didn't have to check in with anybody.

I was just able to just get up and just go, which was amazing.

I love that for us.

Sometimes when I say I love that for you, I do not mean in a positive way, but the way I just said it right now, I do actually love that for us.

And then on the hike, I was able to stop and take pictures whenever I wanted.

I was able to stop because I was out of breath whenever I wanted to without feeling like I'm holding somebody back.

I was able to listen to a good podcast at times, and I was able to just take off my headphones whenever I wanted.

I was able to listen some good music at the times that I wanted.

And if you are going with somebody else, maybe they want to talk to you.

So maybe you're not actually listening to whatever it is you want to listen to.

So it's always just nice to have that flexibility and that freedom to just, in that moment, do whatever you want to do without having to, like, put up a boundary of, hey, no, I want to just listen to this instead of talking to you.

And I'm not saying that it's a bad thing to be able to obviously talk to somebody while you're on a hike with them.

I'm just saying it's nice to have that flexibility to be able get up any time of the day and decide, this is what I want to do and this is the way that I'm gonna do it.

But again, not saying that you can do these things with a partner, it's just a little bit more socially accepted of a behavior to do this when you don't have a partner.

And again, you don't have to go that extra step of having to explain to somebody why you're doing something this particular way.

It's just freeing not to have somebody else to take into account when you're making these on the spot, cool little decisions about your date.

So your note to self today is, what's something you've done recently again, big or small, while being single, that you wouldn't have done if you were coupled up?

So take a minute, think about it jot it down anywhere or just think about it.

Just think about something small and be proud of yourself that you got to do this thing and that you actually did that for yourself.

Because sometimes we don't think about how these small, small little actions, how these small solo treats or solo adventures really improve our lives and like, the effect of them.

It's nice to reflect on how well we treat ourselves.

And yeah, sure, maybe my cheesecake story isn't the best way to like, treat myself.

But also, I know for those few days I needed that.

So while it's not the healthiest treat, it was something that I needed at the time because a I didn't want to have to do all this work to cook for myself and I didn't want to overspend money on other meals and it was just something I was craving and it made me feel good in the moment and that's what I needed in the moment.

And honestly, it made me feel better than any of the men I've dated in the past.

So there's also that if you don't mind, please share this episode with anybody who soloed that you think would benefit from this content.

I really appreciate you doing that.

I really want to make this a community of us.

Okay, let's do our little dancy dance.

I don't think trouble's going to join, but that's okay.

Sam on It Goes on and today's glow up is just this week.

Each day, or the very least every couple of days, write down one thing that you did that you could only do while being single, no matter how small.

You know, maybe you stayed out late, maybe you read a book.

Maybe you bought something just for yourself.

Maybe again, you went on a spontaneous trip.

Maybe you binged a show guilt free.

Like it could be so many things.

Like there's just a variety of things that we're able to do for ourselves guilt free when we are single.

And I really want us to focus on celebrating those small joys.

And please feel free to DM me at the all about being single account on Instagram with what you've done and how it's helped you.

Or email me at all about being single gmail.com or as an alternative, if you're feeling frisky, you can always send me a voice note at all about being single.

Com.

Because the thing is, being single lets you explore and try and do things for yourself at your own pace.

And even if it feels like you're late compared to some other people, you're on time.

You're right on time for your own path.

And next episode.

I've put a lot of work into and I know it's going to resonate with you.

Thanks for listening.

I'll talk to you next Tuesday.