I want to talk for a minute about identity. Namely, mine.

I am an old-fashioned monarch raised by old-fashioned folk with old-fashioned ideas about dating, love, marriage, and the like. It was a struggle growing up, as these notions were in direct conflict with the current times. I guess you could say I was schizophrenic over matters of love from the get go.

I somehow got it into my head that my role was to complete a man. I thought that my duties as a good wife included putting my hopes, dreams, and desires on hold in order to hang onto my husband. I thought all wives did this. I really did, Readers, don’t laugh. Stop it, I can hear you! Okay, so it’s funny in a pathetic way. I see your point. I certainly agree with you now. I won’t get into the whys – clearly I was mistaken in my thinking and I recognize that now. I’m not complaining about Judas – he certainly played a big role but I made my own bed and simply let him roll around in it. Finally, I’m not going to trash-talk myself -- I know I’m not the only solo queen out there who diminished her own personality for her husband’s sake,  so if I make fun of me I am making fun of other monarchs out there as well and let’s face it, I am simply too polite to do such a thing.

The point of today’s discussion is to speak about identity, or the loss of it.

The hardest part after dealing with the immediate fallout of Judas’ departure was finding myself again. I literally had no personal identity. Everything I was, everything I thought myself to be, was an extension of Judas. Or that Judas was an extension of me. Without him, I wasn’t anyone. I certainly wasn’t myself.

Was I?

Actually, the correct question was: who was I? 

To begin the journey to find myself again, I went back to the starting line.

I laid the foundation by running straight into the comforting hug of Lady Eva. You see, Eva knew me long before there ever was a Judas. Eva remembered exactly who I was even if I didn’t. Eva took me by the hand and reminded me of all the glorious and wondrous experiences I had before the Jacobite King. She helped return the princess I was to the Queen I am, and it felt. So. Damn. Good.

From there it was a matter of slowly but meticulously shucking off the layers of coupledom and exposing the singlehood buried underneath. Don’t forget, Sisters, we were all of us single at one time. Our wedded lives may have been a year, or five, or thirty. But remember: we weren’t born married! I started this peeling process by reconnecting with things I used to enjoy as a single woman. Chick flicks. Alternative music. Regular exercise. Admiring boys (okay, so it was just Nutella for awhile but My Ladies if you saw him you wouldn’t have questioned it!). Those things put me in a better frame of mind because each was like reconnecting with another lost friend. 

It became a lot easier from there, because my life became a lot lighter. Those things that once made me happy helped me become happy once again. I'm not suggesting that A Room With A View and Erasure hold the same meaning for me still. But revisiting a happier time made me realize that happiness was still out there. I just had to go backwards to find it.  Then, once I held that joy gently between my fingers, I carried it forward into my current days.  It stays with me now, shares my food, my friends, my bed, my castle.  It it marvelous indeed.

And so now I am me. Not Queen and King, but merely Queen.  And it's gonna be just fine. Really. It is.

I am sharing this with you, my Royal Sisters, because there are many of you out there lost and alone.  I am here to say with bright conviction that tragic solitude does not suit you.  Find your princess. Hit the reset button. Start from the beginning. You can do it. You're gonna be great!

I'm right here if you need me. Exactly where I want to be.

"I'm moving on alone over ground that no one owns past statues that atone for my sins.
There's a guard on every door & a drink on every floor overflowing with a thousand amens.
And it's hard to say who you are these days but you run on anyway, don't you baby?
You keep running for another place to find that saving grace, don't you baby?" ~Tom Petty