It is easy to get wrapped up in the superficial world. It is easy to get drawn into the idea that “things” can make you happy and you can be fulfilled by mediocre friendships, settle in unfulfilling relationships, as long as you are surrounded by others and material items to fill the empty cabinets within yourself.
Expectations of Love
When I was a little girl, I had a vision of the woman I hoped to become. A woman who is unapologetically herself. A woman who works hard to get what she wants, who only speaks truth, who refuses to settle. I wanted to become a woman like my mother, strong, beautiful, endlessly fascinating - a superhero. A woman who walked into a coffee shop and made people turn around in their chairs, with an energy so inviting that people simply had to talk to her.
I’ve watched this vision become cloudy as I tiptoed my way through my first year of college, and as I sprinted through the next few years I think I lost sight of that woman completely. I lost the softness in her smile and the courage underneath her wings. I forgot the way that kindness and warmth in a stranger’s smile can move mountains. I became a woman, but not the one I once dreamed of being.
I became reliant on attention from others - felt the need to fill the empty spaces between my bones with cheap compliments and unrequited feelings. I had daydreams of finding someone to save me, someone to knock on the doors of my lips and make me understand the point of all of the sadness and confusion. I was romanticizing the “Hello”s, the stares from across the classroom, the café, the subway.
Despite the reminders from others that “I don’t need anyone,” I couldn’t help but look for a “partner in crime” at every corner.
Plenty of cracks in my heart, failed affairs, and brief flings later, I found myself at a standstill.
I was in love with telling stories. With gushing to my friends about this person, that night - the guy I met on the subway, the man in the café, my Parisian love affair… I became the shell of a woman who was filled with misshapen promises and nostalgia for a love I thought I found but never stuck around.
Love is a funny thing.
Of the few times I have found myself falling into it, I have found that it is the strongest, most painful and beautiful trap a person can come to know.
The smaller, cheaper versions of love are easy to find. The “You have beautiful eyes,” “Can I buy you a drink?”s. I fall in love every day with a different stranger on the street. I am obsessed with the idea of “a cute story.”
The idea that “you cannot love another until you love yourself” rings true with every fiber of my being. I sit alone and wonder when all of this extra love and care that I have bursting from my seams will be given to another, but they do call it “falling” in love for a reason. You don’t get to choose when it arrives. You do not plan to trip, you just fall.
The person who is best for you is usually not the “love at first sight” - the one who makes you feel dizzy with passion and sweeps you away with grand gestures - it is the one who has been there all along, subtly, quietly waiting in the background, whether you have met or noticed them or not.
When I was a little girl, I thought love was as easy as the storybooks and movies made it look. I thought I would trip in the middle of the hallway and drop my textbooks, and look up to find him on the ground with me to help me pick them up. I thought we would look into each other’s eyes and know.
Of all of the “almost lovers” I’ve had, the failed attempts at a storybook ending or a tumultuous love story, there have been very few that were real, genuine, and healthy. The majority of the experiences I’ve had were romanticized versions of what I hoped they could be. I would make excuses for people for not being who I wanted them to be, “Oh, they didn’t call me because they must be busy”, or “They didn’t mean it in a rude way, they were just joking.”
I’ve always hoped to become a woman who would not settle. And I am still learning how.
So here it is. The point.
I like to think that when it is the right person I will know. It will feel like home and that that thing I search for on every street corner has finally arrived at my door.
John Lennon said “Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end,” and I can’t help but optimistically believe this to be true. I think this goes for love as well. If it does not feel right, it probably isn’t. I trust my own gut more than I trust my heart or my head, there is a feeling, you can’t shake it or change it, your spirit knows before the rest of you does if the person laying beside you belongs there.
To my future self…
When they knock on your door, answer. Even if they don’t look like the vision in your head, even if their smile is a little crooked and they don’t know how to cook. Even if they’re disheveled, quirky, or have an embarrassing laugh. Let them bring you the joy you have been searching for in all of the wrong places. The consistency and the truth that you have craved and sought after in those who played “hard to get.”
But remember, you are not looking for your “other half.” You are a whole person to begin with, and all of the love and joy and care you have bundled up inside of you, that is for you to give. Love is not about the “taking,” and only you are capable of saving yourself and becoming the person you strive to be. It feels nice to have someone holding your hand along the way, but never forget that the only thing you need is to make a home of yourself. Decorate it for yourself, and nobody else.
Be the person you want to find,
Give the kind of love you want to receive.
So for now, I will become the person who has the qualities I hope to find - the unconditional care, gratitude, the sense of humor, optimism, and free spirited nature.
I will continue to become the woman who wakes up early because she likes the quiet of the morning. The woman who meditates to silence the negative thoughts, and allows flowers to bloom in the darkest places of herself. The woman who seeks reassurance only within herself, and requires nothing and no one else to feel “at home.” She will read every day, be relentlessly curious, absorb knowledge until her mind bursts, and she will not be afraid to care. She will keep her priorities straight and practice self care.
I will become more than just “the woman I hoped to become,” I will become myself - in my truest form.