I Settled

A. Lynn
A. Lynn
Aug 31, 2018 · 4 min read

I found myself overwhelmed with all the recent (and some not so recent) events in my life and needed to find some kind of outlet that didn’t involve either popping my as-needed anxiety meds or getting drunk so I ended up here.


Life has a funny way of working out. Sometimes I struggle trying to make sense of everything that happens because I tell myself it all happens for a reason, and I believe that it does it’s just easy to feel hopeless when you’re dealt a shitty hand. And who I am right now is very much the opposite of who I was this time last year. This time last year I had closed the chapter of a not so perfect 4 year marriage that I initially fought to save but couldn’t. I was also somewhat at peace with that (but never properly healed from it) once I accepted the reality that the love had been dead long beforehand. At one point I loved him with everything in me but it was young love, he was my first love. Married at 18 to my high school sweetheart who was in the army and stationed in Hawaii. What 18 year old wouldn’t want to be over 4,000 miles away from the small town life she had always known to be on Oahu with her newly wedded husband? I couldn’t believe that was my life. I was happy. But the years went on we had our rounds we had our issues the love faded. What it boiled down to in the end why I actually fought to try to save the marriage was for all the wrong reasons. I didn’t know life without him. He represented stability to me I held onto that, I realized I had settled.


Shortly after the divorce, I found myself getting to know someone new. He was everything I thought I wanted. He made life exciting and spontaneous. I didn’t know happiness like that existed. I visited him only twice for only a week or two at a time before deciding to move in with him; fucking crazy (and stupid) right? This was my fresh start. I was lucky enough to get a job almost immediately. Everything that was happening around me all seemed like signs showing me that I was meant to be where I was at and maybe I was I think I just got confused about him being a part of it. We did things wrong. Even if there isn’t necessarily a “right” way to go about things everything about it was wrong. But why did it feel so right at the time? Took me a year to see that it was doomed from the start. I wasn’t seeing things for what they were I was seeing things the way I wanted them to be. Which is where I fucked up. That’s where I am at fault. The relationship ended up being the most toxic thing in my life it left me broken and confused and looking at myself differently. I realized once again that I had settled. I had settled this time for someone who I don’t believe ever genuinely loved me. Or if/when he did it was much too late. Someone who I made excuses for because I knew he had a hard life. Someone who’s actions I tried to justify to the point that everyone around me was worried that I just wasn’t seeing the reality of it, and I was going to end up in an even worse position that where he ended up putting me. That’s a story for another time. I could sit here and point fingers and say it was all him but it wasn’t completely. I played my part I’ve accepted my role in it all. Nobody is perfect; we’re all flawed. I settled because my heart couldn’t take another failed relationship especially after not allowing myself time to properly heal from a failed marriage at 22. I settled because I had built my life around him without even realizing I had done that, and I wanted so desperately for it to work out. I thought we could be happy. Sometimes I think we were almost truly happy. Really I think it was just an illusion.


The point is I have realized I have this insanely unhealthy habit of settling. I think this was a wake up call. I won’t settle again. I can’t. I owe it to myself to build a life for me that doesn’t revolve around someone else. One that won’t be taken away from me. Here I am 23 I’ve put my life on hold, I’ve held myself back, I’ve tried to base my happiness on someone else and that has done be absolutely no favors. It’s way past time to find my own happiness. Find what makes ME happy instead of stupidly handing my happiness to someone else. It’s past time to find myself. And that is what I am doing. Wish me luck.