Imagine being in a five year-long relationship, and a beautiful one at that. ‘Good morning’ texts, mini-dates at the park and thoughtfully curated gifts were all that you knew for those five rich years. You’re obsessed with each other.
But at the same time, you become scarily similar to your partner. You adopt habits and opinions that aren’t truly yours. You internalize the stagnant, unproductive, unprogressive energy that your partner omits. You ignore the warning signs that your friends have been pointing out for years. You become quite different from who you were five years ago. The real you dissolves into your partner like salt in water. The result is a glass of salty water that is hard to down.
Related: When Mom’s Advice Doesn’t Work
I was the salt and my partner was the water. Through plenty of introspection, I realized that my salty self needed to be separated from what I became. It wasn’t me. The issue here was this: I thought love was the salty water, the union of me and my partner. I realized how wrong it felt to depend on someone else for love. True love can’t be derived from someone else. It’s derived from the self.
After breaking up with my partner, I grieved hard. I broke down so severely that night and wasn’t able to function properly all week. Despite all of this, I felt something extremely comforting deep within myself; I felt in love.
Now this love was different. It wasn’t derived from anyone else. It wasn’t infatuation with another human soul. It wasn’t the exciting possibility of meeting someone new. In fact, it didn’t require anyone else in order to work. It was a type of love that has been with me my entire life.
The life-changing thing I learned about love after my breakup was this: The universe IS love, and that is all the love I need.
Please let this sentiment sink in. Through the challenging although fluid journey of intense self-discovery, I realized that the love that I had with my partner was temporary; it wouldn’t satisfy my true being because my true being was slowly slipping away throughout our relationship. The universe’s love is supremely unique and uniquely divine. The universe loves without consequence, without judgment. Most of all, it allows us to just be. It gave birth to all life and perfectly fine-tuned everything to harmonize with other life forces. The loving, eternal, warm presence that permeates all things and allows them to exist IS love!
This realization gave me great comfort in loving myself and my life without a partner. This isn’t to say I am against relationships. Relationships are lovely, but they aren’t everything. After all, you get the love that you give.