It took me a long time to find my true love and for awhile I worried I would never meet Mr. Right. My mom would always tell me it’s when you least expect it that you’ll meet someone and you need to feel good about yourself first before you can meet someone. As was often the case, she was right.
It wasn’t until I accepted and was ok with the fact that I was single that I finally fell in love. I finally had a job that was a good fit for me. I was enjoying going out with girl friends and accepting of myself after years of struggling with my body image and an eating disorder. I was in a good place.
After no success with online dating I randomly got an email from a friend from college who I occasionally kept in touch with over the years. We decided to meet up at a Starbucks to catch up. I had no idea this meeting would turn into a relationship and a marriage about two years after that meeting. There was that least expect it part.
Even after entering this relationship, we never worried too much about Valentine’s Day dinner out or flowers. The holiday is not about that stuff, but about loving who you are with and that may be just yourself at the time and that’s ok.
In fact, one of the only memorable Valentine’s Day I have is from my single days and when I was working at Old Navy while in college. It was a Friday night and there was a chance of a snow storm. The few of us on the closing shift were all single and were all kind of down as the love themed monthly soundtrack played to an empty store. Since we literally had no customers for the last 2 hours or so the store was open, our manager made it fun. We began belting out the love songs, then changing out the CD to a summer one and “surfing” on the register tables and were also tossing around footballs that were near the registers (don’t ask why I remember these details so many years later). It became one of the best shifts I ever worked. We all felt the disappointment of being single on Valentine’s Day but accepted it that night and turned what could be a slow, boring shift into a lot of fun.
That is what life is about, take what we are given at the moment, accept it even if it’s not what we want and make it work.
You can be disappointed and want to be at a different point in your life but also learn to embrace who you are. If you don’t love yourself, how can anyone else? It took me years to learn this and I wish I learned sooner, but once I learned this lesson I finally found love.
This year I had to learn to embrace and accept the tough situation I was faced with. I wanted to hide and keep my cancer private but instead I chose to accept this is what I am dealing with right now. While I was wish I wasn’t dealing with this, I have accepted the hair loss, the chemo treatments, the inability to work, the help I hate asking for because I had to accept where I am at the moment. So single or in a relationship, love yourself and embrace yourself at this moment in time. Belt out those love songs (one of my all time favorites is Real Love by Mary J Blige) and continue that search for real love, but start with yourself. When you least expect it, you may find that real love, someone to set your heart free…Thank you Chris Wetzell for accepting me and my many faults and allowing me to find real love.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
