Shonda Rhimes is a consummate storyteller whose stories have pushed at social inequities, giving pop-culture representation to the underrepresented within her compelling worlds. The world I’m most taken with is Queen Charlotte, the prequel spinoff of Bridgerton. Bridgerton is set in the Regency Era, envisioning a world where there’s a black queen, a resulting rise in the social status of blacks, and an apparent resolution of racial tensions. It seems to be a color-blind society. Bridgerton has at its focus the (white) Bridgerton family and their relationships and romantic entanglements. Lady Bridgerton, a widow, is shepherding her eight children into adulthood, society, and ultimately betrothal. The storylines center around the young generation. But not Queen Charlotte.

Queen Charlotte toggles between the time frame set for us in Bridgerton when Queen Charlotte is 52 (My age!) and when she was a young woman whose own betrothal was being arranged (her origin story). This show pivots to focus more on the black characters (the queen and Lady Danbury), but it’s also about strong women at mid-life, women who have the knowledge and experience of a half-lifetime and are still going strong. Women like me.

I’ve done my share of living at 52, and hope to have much more living in me. But inevitably, at this stage in life, there’s some heartbreak, some grief in that living. I have the heartbreak of a toxic marriage, a relationship where I was regularly emotionally and verbally abused. And while I’ve had some beautiful and powerful romantic connections in the thirteen years since, for one reason or another none of my connections has manifested as the enduring partnership that I desire. And that is my grief–the grief of not having a lasting loving relationship in this lifetime. At least, not yet.

And so, I understand Lady Danbury–a loveless marriage, romantic connections that don’t fully manifest, a strength in her solitude. And I understand Lady Danbury’s meaning, when saying to a mournful Lady Bridgerton on her deceased husband’s birthday, “You are most fortunate,” something Lady Bridgerton, grieving, fails to initially understand.

Last year, I dated my first widower. Damon is the kind of man I’ve been looking for, hoping for–attractive, intellectual (a professor and scientist!), funny (I’m used to being the funny one; a man who can make me laugh is a huge turn on.), and kind. I have exquisite taste in men, and he’s an exceptional man. We had fun together. He liked me enough to go out with me twice, despite his reservations of dating long-distance. Ultimately, he pulled back, saying “I feel like I’m your last hope.”

Au contraire. As I told him, “This isn’t an episode of Star Wars.” There’s always another day, another possibility, another man. But while disappointed that yet another special connection hadn’t worked out, I also found his words lacking in empathy, dismissive in a way, painting me as somehow desperate. And I can see how it seemed that way to him.

Dating is a means to an end for me. I seek that loving relationship I’ve lacked. But, as it hasn’t manifested (yet), dating has become something of a lifestyle. Over time, I’ve learned a lot about men, relationships, dating, and perhaps most of all, myself. I’ve worked to evolve to an ever-better version of myself, and I’ve learned what I want in a man and a relationship. I recognized that in Damon. And the thing is, I don’t come across such a man very often. When I have, to date, the connection has failed to work out for various reasons. So, while I’m hardly desperate (which is how Damon made me feel), I’ve been through enough on my journey to appreciate the preciousness of connection, and to be willing to do the work (i.e., distance) to be with the kind of man I desire.

Damon’s grief was foreign to me as I haven’t had a loving long-term committed relationship, much less lost that partner to a too-soon passing. But I did understand the power of his grief, the power of Grief, and I tried to learn his grief to better understand him. I tried to make room for his wife in the shared space of whatever relationship we might create by asking about her and inviting him to tell me a story about her–in order to honor her, to honor his/their history, to honor his grief. He was unable to do that for me.

I’ve been single a long time. I really liked him and was quite clear about that. He never asked about my experience, about my grief. He never knew the stories of what it is like to live in a marriage where you are belittled. He knows the loneliness of the void created by losing his wife, but he doesn’t know the loneliness of being in a loveless marriage or the loneliness of thirteen years and counting of being single. He doesn’t know a whole lifetime of lonely. He doesn’t know the grief of not having had that loving relationship at all. That is my grief. That is Lady Danbury’s grief. A grief that Lady Bridgerton didn’t understand either. Lady Bridgerton failed to understand that despite her pain and grief, she was lucky to have had that loving relationship that Lady Danbury and I have only had in a fleeting manner. That doesn’t make us lesser, nor does it make us desperate. We are strong, because that is the better option.

Damon is most fortunate, even in his grief, for he has had what I haven’t. At this stage of life, those of us who are single likely have some grief to go with our status. We’re all individuals with unique stories and unique grief. There are all kinds of reasons for never having married, for being divorced, and being widowed. To truly open our heart to loving another and being a good partner, we need to do our best to understand their grief and to honor their experience, even if it’s foreign to our own.

And just as Lady Danbury rejected the Queen’s brother, I too have my suitors whose favors I decline, for it’s better to be strong and single than to settle for a claustrophobic relationship. We’ve been there and done that and we won’t do it again. Better to be lonely alone than lonely in relationship.