I graduated college in December 2004, but I don’t remember much about it after going back from my semester off. I remember being sad a lot. I remember being angry a lot. I remember working too much, partying too hard, and dating way too many guys that were all kinds of wrong for me. So, basically your stereotypical
2005 was the single worst year of my life. I was depressed, directionless, and destructive. I sat up all night smoking clove cigarettes, drinking red wine, painting out my feelings and writing bad poetry.
It took a long, long, time to learn to love myself. I’ve never been very good at it, but with time, I learned to accept the things that had happened to me during my college career. Like Mama says, “No one ever said life was fair.”
I still didn’t think I’d find the type of relationship that would lead to marriage, so I told people that I didn’t want to get married. I didn’t want to have kids.
That was the farthest thing from the truth I could have said to anyone. And I said it to protect myself.
In early 2007, I severed ties with a man I had dated off an on for 5 years. It was a turning point for me in that I really, truly began the journey of becoming a whole person. Do you know what I mean when I say that? Not a person looking for another half to complete them. Whole. I learned to love myself and make myself happy.
Later that year, I ran into someone I had dated briefly in college and began dating him again. We seemed to have the makings of a good relationship, but something went wrong. He actually meant it when he said he didn’t want a relationship, much less marriage and children. He saw through me, despite the words coming out of my mouth. I did want those things, I was just afraid to admit it or accept it. It took the hurt of that friendship ending to show me exactly what I did want from a relationship and I found the confidence to throw off the shackle of lies and be exactly who I am.
So who was I? I was a woman who has struggled to work through some serious emotional baggage. I was a woman who wanted very much to have a healthy, loving relationship that resulted in marriage, and maybe someday, children. I was a woman who was no longer burdened by religion, having found no solace or meaning in it. I was a woman who fell in love with herself.
I was a woman who no longer dwelled on being less than. I finally felt like I was enough.
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