If I had a penny for every time I’d been compared to Emily Ratajkowski, well… I’d have one penny, because finally I have something in common with one of the world’s most beautiful women. The model and actress posted a TikTok (which many believe relates to the criticism levelled at Sophie Turner) captioned ‘personally, I find it chic to be divorced by the age of 30’. And as a (self-identified) young chic divorcÄe, I’m here to tell you: she is absolutely right. Not only is being divorced chic, it can be the start of a fulfilled, exciting and much happier new life.
Like Ratajkowski, I was married in my late 20s and separated by 31. Unlike Emily, however, I didn’t settle immediately into ‘chic’. I was heartbroken, lost, and a single mother to a child under two. The life I thought would be mine had vanished, and I couldn’t picture how any other life would look, or how that ‘other’ would include happiness. ‘Divorce’ was a word that people still whispered to each other as if it was contagious or shameful. And despite the fact my parents were divorced (my father twice, in fact), and I’d grown up perfectly happy in a one-parent home, I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that I’d failed at marriage, and would likely fail at parenting as a result, too.
