No one wants to be alone. It’s in our genes to survive in this world, but the idea is to not to do it by yourself. When I look at peers my age, their main interest is to find a significant other to fulfill that empty space in their heart with love from another human being.
I get it, no one wants be alone.
However, in my nineteen years of life, I’ve only been in one serious relationship. Yes, I have casually dated other people from time to time, but it never got anywhere beyond that. I thought something was wrong with me – maybe I was too prideful, too mature, and too determined for others my age. I couldn’t understand why I felt so empty and alone.
Fast-forward four years, as I look back on all the “situationships” and that one relationship, I realized one thing: I never learned how to love me.
What I mean by that was not just realizing that I am a beautiful girl with attractive traits beyond my years, but it was understanding my worth and how important that is to my own future. I have ambition, dreams and qualities like no one else. I know what I want out of life and how I must get there. The only thing was that I refused to be with someone else who could not amount or did not want to amount to the same things as me, and I was not going to settle for less.
So, I begin to date myself.
On my emotional journey I explored what characteristics drew me in I emotionally explored what made me happy and what things I didn’t find satisfying in myself and in another person. I hated the fact that I was so prideful. It was if I held my true feelings in when really they should have been heard. My insecurities dragged me down because I felt as if I wasn’t pretty enough or good enough for anyone. And my arrogance was too extreme. I had to realize that not everyone was as open-minded as I was raised to be.
I must admit, it was an eye-opening experience, but I realized that it was because I did not love me as hard I should have. I’ve always been a very considerate person and often did more for others than I did for myself. I often cared more about everyone else than I did my own self, and that’s not how it should be. It’s okay to be selfless and not selfish, but there is a thin between letting people wreck you with their problems than you dealing with your own.
As I sit here today trying to figure out what makes me genuinely happy, I see that it’s the motivation to better myself.
I find comfort in achieving my goals. I catch a high knowing that I am making the people in my life proud as I embark on my self-journey. No other human being can make me feel the way that I do now, and eventually I will find someone who may make me feel the same way but it technically isn’t the same.
I am content with lonely. I am happy with the person I am becoming. Learning to love me first has been the biggest accomplishment I have achieved yet. I’m figuring out new things every day that I never knew existed.
Until that person comes in my life who I believe will fill that empty hole in my heart, I will continue to love myself first and accept the person I am becoming.