He Loves Me. He Loves Me Not.

Maybe it’s COVID.  Maybe it was quarantine. Or maybe it’s the weather warming up.  Either way, I have been made aware of many things, but nothing more than the fact that I am single as a dollar bill.  I have been enjoying the social media posts of new relationships, engagements, weddings, pregnancies and births.  I just LOVE love.  But I can’t help but wonder, when will it be my turn?  Do I even have a turn?  God, if You’re out of husbands just say that.  Let’s get into it.

Quick show of hands: whose life came together the way they planned? Yeah, mine either.  This is a safe space to be honest, so I will be just that.  I should be celebrating my seven year marriage anniversary, three kids in with a Ph.D in Counseling.  The way I just laughed and cried at the same time.  My life doesn’t closely resemble that at all.  I’m still overcoming the fact that those things have not manifested in my life yet, but I can’t say it’s not hard when it’s constantly in my face.

Then it makes me wonder.  What wrong decisions did I make? Maybe I should’ve went to that party or that restaurant when I was invited instead of making up an excuse to stay home.  Maybe I do need to leave my house more often.  And just when I made that decision for 2020…BAM! COVID came with a vengeance and knocked those plans straight to the back of the line.  Now it’s a whole new year, outside is slowly opening up, but we’re wearing masks everywhere.  And the dating pool has a little pee in it, if we’re being completely honest.

The most important love is self- love.  This is true.  I’ve been working on it my entire life. Especially with everyone having their “preferences” and you realizing you don’t fit most of them, you HAVE to learn to love yourself. Best decision I ever made.  But with the “love yourself before you love anyone else” theory, I also think that gives the notion that we are only worthy of love when we love ourselves, when honestly we are ALWAYS worthy no matter what stage of life we are in.  Once I came to that realization, it did make a significant impact on my journey.

Sometimes you think you’ve found something special. You think you’ve found something real, long lasting and eternal. And in a way you have, but it’s not the love you’ve been longing for.  It’s the lesson you needed to learn which is never easy.  A lesson that shows you who you are, where you are, what you’re willing to take and not take.  It’s showing you YOU. They’re equivalent to those early childhood lessons we learn like how to add and subtract or your ABCs.  They start off simple, then as we grow older, they get a little more complex. Math starts adding letters, and the ABCs become sentences and essays.  But they are all the foundation. Oh, the woes of relationships.  And I know that when love finds me that it will be worth every lesson learned during this process and journey.  Not going to lie though, I’m tired of sitting in this class LOL.

For those of you that love found, kudos.  Some of us feel like we’re late to that party *cough* me *cough*, but I guess we’re actually still on time.  And this notion of timing… whew! That’s a whole other post in itself.  But I will wait patiently until it’s my turn.