You might find yourself all over again after reading this. It is quite a long but its worth at the end.
It
was my junior year of college right before Thanksgiving and all I could
think about was how many days were left before Christmas vacation when
I’d be back home to see my new fiancé. Well, all up until 5am one
morning when I awoke from an awful dream. I sat up in my bed, called my
mother and told my mom, “I think (insert name) is cheating on me.”
Now, if you knew (insert name) and I, you would know that he would’ve
never been the one cheating. Everyone, including me, thought that this
man would’ve done anything for me and straying would be the last thing I
or anyone else would’ve ever considered. So much so that when those
words came out of my mouth, it felt like a foreign language. But I knew.
Every part of me knew. I never thought a second of it before, but in
that moment, I would’ve bet my life on it. That knowingness led to the
phone call to my mother who then informed me that (insert name) had
never come home the previous night. He had moved in with my family
during that year as he was having trouble with his own family, so my mom
pretty much knew his comings and goings. This was the first time he
ever did anything like this and it just so happened to be on the night
that I had this dream. This wasn’t the first time I had dreamt stuff
that happened to come true. A story worth telling another time. I knew
he had this new girl “best friend” that he worked with, and for some
reason, I decided that I would call her house. Yes, it was five AM, and
yes, that seems a bit psychotic, but in the moment, it seemed pretty
logical to me. I called, she answered, I asked for him and she handed
him the phone. Not only was he sleeping over her house but obviously
right next to her as it took about 1. 5 seconds for him to come to the
phone. There was nothing for him to say or do except let out a long sigh
on the phone. That was it. We were done. Five years of a relationship
ended over a dream. Of course there were the talks, the breakdowns, the
making up for a night, the screaming, crying, trying again for a minute
and finally, it was over. It was actually over for the next 15 years.
What I mean by that is that I stayed single. Don’t get me wrong, I
dated, but I never got involved in another serious relationship. It
might seem pretty bleak and sad and well, just plain pathetic, but what
happened over the course of those 15 years was something that was worth
all 5,475 days of singledom. I fell in love, again. And the person with
whom was worth every second of that fifteen years was myself. That’s
right. I took a fifteen year journey to find the love of my life was me
all along. And what a journey it was. A journey that I highly encourage
every person to pack their bags and take.
Perhaps
fifteen years might seem a bit extreme to some (normal) people,
however, we all require different experiences to learn certain lessons.
Some of us even require those lessons learned a few times. What I find
interesting though when I look at people and their relationships, they
spend so much time courting and trying to win somebody else over and
they sacrifice so much of themselves for someone else, but they rarely
give themselves that same kind of attention and love. We are so quick to
defend and protect someone else but in a second we would beat ourselves
up over something we said or did. We spend so much time punishing
ourselves for our past mistakes and playing those old tapes in our heads
telling us how we aren’t good enough and we don’t deserve happiness,
etc. If we gave ourselves the same amount of support, love,
encouragement and chances we give to others, we’d probably have a lot
better relationships with people because we would
need a lot less from them.
So what the heck did I do with myself over that time? I learned about myself. I learned what I
didn’t want which ultimately led to knowing what I
did want.
I took myself out to dinners and movies. I read books. I even tried my
hand at art. That didn’t go well. I wrote. I wrote some more and then I
wrote some more. I spent time with my friends. I learned about eating
well and exercising. Yes, I went on dates, but never dates that would
lead anywhere. Not purposely. I mean, I thought I wanted them too, but I
think the universe knew that I needed to do some inner work first
before I was ready to try to make a relationship work with someone else.
Those dates never ended well. I got hurt. I basically put myself in
situations that forced me to either breakdown and never want to leave my
bed, or look at myself more closely and figure out who I was and why I
was worth loving. I mean if I couldn’t see the beauty and perfection in
myself, how could I expect anyone else to? I began having a love affair
with myself. I know that sounds weird, but it is the most highly
recommended advice I could ever dole out. The greatest thing about
dating myself was I always got to see the movies I wanted, go to the
restaurants I wanted and basically got to call all the shots. If you
know me on a personal level, this was definitely a match made in heaven.
Of
course there was a lot more “work” involved in this courting of myself,
but my point of all of this is, we really need to start investing in
ourselves. We really need to start being kinder to ourselves. We need to
start complimenting ourselves, encouraging ourselves, taking care of
ourselves and ultimately doing exactly what we would do to someone we
are in love with. We need to be the example to someone else of how we
want and deserve to be treated. We need to set the bar so our partner
and others in general know how to treat us. If we aren’t able to provide
the support, love and life we ultimately want for ourselves, then we
will spend forever trying to get that from someone else and nobody will
ever be able to fulfill that role which will ultimately lead to
disappointment on your part. We are meant to share our
BEST selves with each other. Our
WHOLE selves. Our
FULFILLED selves. We are meant to bring
that into our relationships with one another and watch the beauty of the two lives intertwine to create a beautiful
new life together.
So
wherever you are right now along your journey in life, make sure that
you are giving yourself everything that you would want from someone
else. For goodness sake, every time I wake up in the morning, I look in
the mirror and sweet talk myself. On my way out the door, I actually say
“Go get ‘em gorgeous!” I know it might sound crazy, but damn, I give
good compliments and I’m worth every single one of them!
I
am now in a new relationship after my many years of being “single” and I
believe the greatest thing that I have brought into this new
relationship is my love for myself. My wish for you is that you take the
time you are deserving of and find all the reasons why you are worth
loving and then get your booty out there and share your unique light
with the world! I promise that what you discover along the way, will be
the most satisfying, fulfilling and beautiful partner you could ever
wish for! YOU! Aren't you worth the time?
Above note is from the following FB page:-
SHARIng (Sunshine & Love) with SHARI
