That Kind Of Woman

You must be new here… #foreveralone

TKOWmatch.com coming Spring of 2014.

Terms and Conditions include me having to introduce you both in person on the first date. Like that friend who makes sure that you aren’t being set up with a serial killer. Also, texting you in 30 minute intervals to make sure you don’t need a bail out. Or, I am like a overprotective mother and sit behind you kids in the movie theater.

Honestly, I don’t think we ever are supposed to get over the people that we loved. Even if that love was not fulfilled by intimacy. Each romantic experience we have, big or small, is supposed to affect us so that we can grow. That growth will lead to another relationship. Maybe that will be the one, maybe it won’t.

I look at my parents as a huge influence on my outlook on relationships.   My mom, as you may or may not know, is a badass. In the same right, so is my dad. But my mom is the one that has from my childhood, shaped my outlook on life due to the amount of time we spent together. 

She was married before she met my dad, to my half brother’s father. It wasn’t a relationship that was supposed to continue, but it did lead to her meeting the love of her life, my dad. She didn’t hold feelings for her ex, but she held onto the things she learned. 

I think that that lesson is one we learn each time a person leaves our lives.

I dated a guy. Long distance, and it was… well it was wonderful. I needed that. I needed the type of relationship that started through communication, sharing. The physical part of the relationship came later, after the emotional and intellectual part had built a foundation.

However, that communication faded. For both of us. We both realized it wasn’t the real on a certain level. But, I learned what I needed for future relationships. 

Then, this past summer I started dating. It was horrid. However, I learned a couple more things. Things that I needed out of the men in my life and things I needed to adapt about myself.

I will let you in on something. I was rejected this past summer, and it hit me pretty hard. Really hard. It culminated with a job that was stressful and depressing, and a penchant for staying up to late and running away from the cause of my stress, depression and my mood swings. 

It wasn’t until very recently that I realize that I deserve so much more for myself. 

I am beautiful, kind, funny and I have so much to offer someone in a relationship. Just because I was rejected, didn’t mean I deserved to treat myself worse. Emotionally and physically.

I gained weight this summer from the amount of food I emotionally would cook and eat, and the fact I went on a craft beer pilgrimage I was drinking and eating my calories, I was getting sick easily because I didn’t get enough sleep and I wasn’t doing what I wanted. Instead I was being pushed around by my indecision. 

In September, I decided to change things. But, change doesn’t happen overnight. 

That’s why we can’t just get over people. We can’t get past experiences that happen. Because one moment can change us for the worse, but for the better we need to put in day after day of work.

Realize this, you may sometime in the future be with this guy. But, you aren’t right now. It’s a hard truth. A terrible truth. But, you have better things to invest your time and emotion in. Like yourself. 

Be with yourself. Find flaws to love, find quirks to cultivate, and find the things that you are too scared to alter. Not throw away, not change. But alter. Small alterations or large ones. Find them, and find ways to make things fit better. 

It’s terrifying. It’s easier to bask in the crappy emotions that take hold of you, but it’s time to look yourself in the mirror and realize what’s best for the person staring back at you.