Hey, you.
Yes, you.
The single girl over there, the one who believes she will be alone forever.
You are enough.
All by yourself, you are enough.
Everything you need to be happy exists in your heart right now.
You have endless capacity for joy.
You are strong, resourceful, resilient. You are wise. You have humour. You have empathy.
You are loved and you possess great stores of love for others.
I know you are afraid. I know you want what other people you know have. A relationship. Commitment. Someone to hold onto when the travelling gets rough.
About that I would say this: You cannot have what they have. The relationships you envy? They are singular, a particular blend of those two imperfect individuals that makes something special and yet, at the same time, something unknowable. Do not believe that any relationship is perfect or easy. None are. Do not make the mistake of believing that you know the secret heart of any relationship. You don't. Only the intertwined pair does. It is a land to which only they have a map.
I think you also believe that you need to find someone to complete you.
This is a lie.
You complete yourself.
A relationship will accent your life. It will highlight who you are, add to your life, make it better in some ways and, to be perfectly honest? Worse in others. Two lives do not become blended without compromise and bending. However, accentuation is not completion. Don't kid yourself.
If there are empty spaces? If there are holes? You need to do the digging to fill them yourself. You don't hand a man (or a woman, for that matter) a shovel and expect him to fill those holes for you. He will not appreciate it. (If the roles are reversed? You won't either.)
You are brilliant, beautiful, and bold.
But.
You need to let go of the idea that you are not enough, just the way you are. I fear that you are letting moments -- outstanding, lovely moments -- pass by you in regret and longing. Let me tell you something: You will NEVER get them back, those minutes of your life. Do not waste them.
You are enough. Right now is enough.
All by yourself, you are enough.
Feeling whole within yourself is what we all strive for. After being married for nearly 41 years, I can assure you a partner never completes me. Nor do I complete him. I think of us like salt and pepper shakers. We look nice together on a table, but in cooking and eating, there are many times the shakers are used separately. I never put salt on a pizza but might add a little pepper. I might use salt in making cookies, but have never added pepper. Sure, we present the salt and pepper shakers together to the world but that is habit and artistic design more than anything else. Yes, there are foods where they are used together, too, but this always varies. Right now, I need to lower my BP so am using much less salt...lol. Life is always changing. BTW, there are people who NEVER taste their food BEFORE putting salt and pepper on it. I see this analogy as folks who jump into marriage just because they have the idea that is what should be presented to the world....two things placed together. How much better is it to know one's own tastes BEFORE using the shakers at all? JMHO
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that feeling whole within yourself is what we SHOULD strive for, but I think that many people believe that they need to find things outside themselves to achieve it, so they pin their hopes on things, which is why I so often hear "When I lose weight I will" or "When I get married I will" or "After I find the perfect job I will" and then the weight is lost or the marriage takes place or the job is attained and people are shocked and dismayed to find that they are not happy. That life still isn't perfect. That they are the same person, only now they wear a smaller dress size, have a spouse, or work harder than they anticipated but otherwise, nothing has changed (except that now they're super depressed, because they thought they had entered a magical land and it turns out to be ... the same place they were). It's unfortunate, and so sad.
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