The Right One Will...

The rain pounded the glass of the sunroof above me, the windows fogged, my eyes filled with tears, and in a moment, just as my Yogi Mieka would had explained, I knew what it felt like to realize that part of your heart was living outside your body.

After a serious lack of sleep and stressful week personally and professionally, I succumbed to old tactics. I almost single handedly self-sabotaged the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I tripped hard over an old wound. Before I could even get my head around what I was feeling, I did what I knew best. I walked out the door, I ran. It was pouring rain, I fumbled for my keys and made my way down the dark street to my car. My heart pounded and ached as the familiar rush of anxiety spread through my body. I turned the key in the ignition, then fumbled for my phone. I had forgotten to let my mom know I’d arrived back to the city safely from the cottage. I scrambled to send her a reply. 

As I hit send, the passenger door opened and before I could even get my head around what was happening he ducked inside my car. His warm hand reached softly for my hand. I felt a sense of complete and utter panic, this part was new to me. I didn’t know if I wanted to cry or fly back out the other door into the rain. I was so used to walking out the door, no one had ever stopped me. I didn’t know what to do, what to say, I was frustrated, upset and completely out of my element. I had felt myself backed into a corner in a discussion, I didn’t know how to be heard. Old wounds surfaced, scenarios replayed in my head.

After many challenged relationships, I was used to walking away. It had become, as a previous man told me, my test. I was so used to walking away and not being chased, I just stopped looking back. This time was different. This man wasn’t going to let me off on self-sabotage. He wasn’t going to punish me either. Instead, he listened, comforted me, and made me promise I would never try that again. Somehow, everything that came out of his mouth in the next 2 minutes was everything I needed to hear. He scooped me up in his strong arms and I melted into his warm body. In that moment, I felt that old wound wash away with the rain. After he kissed me goodnight and walked back inside, I burst into tears. I looked back at his red door, and said “that’s the last door I will ever walk out of.” I finally found the man that wouldn’t let me go. It felt so good it actually hurt. 

I have finally come to appreciate what it means to have someone accept you just the way you are. I had spent so much time trying to understand my imperfections, fix them and move forward stronger than ever. Yet, here in my weakest moment, I felt the deepest kind of love, the kind I had longed for my entire life. It lifted the bandaid I had worn to protect a soft spot, it opened my heart completely. There would no longer be need or even a method to protect my heart, as half of it now lives in this world outside of my body. Yet, it feels safe.

I can finally truly appreciate the words of everyone who tried to explain that “the right one will…”  The right one will understand, respect, and adore every last piece of you. Imperfections and all. The right one will be ready for whatever you throw at them. They will offer you patience, forgiveness, and even more love in your weakest moments. The right one will want you to feel safe and secure in the relationship. The right one will want to work through the tough stuff. They will hold onto the good memories even on bad days. 

It was worth the wait, for the right one.

A series of small adjustments; life.

Whether it’s work, a relationship, of just moving about through this world. We are given continuous opportunity for growth. Just as we transition from any role in life to another, we are constantly trying to find our new footing. In recent conversations with friends, I’ve had the chance to reflect on my life both in and out of relationships. 

Leaving a serious relationship, even by choice is difficult. Don’t kid yourself. I remember leaving a long term relationship and wondering to myself why my heart was so broken given it was my own choice? I had caused myself the heartache. My mom was quick to point out, it’s not always the relationship that was hard to leave, but the life you knew, and the life you planned around it. She was right. After spending any period of your life involved in something - be it a relationship or a career - everything changes. We as people have a tendency to think we are in complete control of our future, and without a second thought go about building a vision of life in the future, based on the life we are currently living. Then something changes.

For me, going from a 10 year relationship to being completely alone was confusing, upsetting, scary, among other things. I hadn’t realized how much of a life I had built forward off of the life I’d been living. I had a plan for the summer that followed, for 3 years from then, for 5 years from then. Suddenly, I had no vision. Nothing to aim for. I wasn't sure what to even do with myself. While in a relationship I was always craving time to myself, now I had all the time in the world and it terrified me. Weekends were haunting. I had nothing to do, apart from a few chores, but be alone with myself. 

If you’ve been there, you’re nodding your head. Remembering those first steps you took into a whole new world. Coming from being so strong, certain and comfortable in the world, to the complete opposite. Gradually over a period of time, you adjusted. Through experimentation, I began trying new things. I went to the movies alone. Took up new sports. Found new social opportunities. There myself into work. Without realizing it, I was finally starting to learn who I was. The world around me was providing me the feedback I needed. Although it wasn’t that simple. I had to interact. The more I did, the more I learned. 

Looking at my life, I can appreciate the number of different situations that brought similar learning about. When I retired from competitive softball, I took up golf. I was terrible! I hated knowing anyone was on the tee box behind me in case they saw me shank the ball off the tee. I remember praying the ball would at least make it 50 yards in front of me, anywhere. I took lessons. It was tough, every time I thought I finally caught on, my coaches feedback told me otherwise. In fact, I recall once being told I hadn’t actually improved, rather, I had perfected a flawed technique. Lol. Yes, that’s right. We humans have an incredible way of subconsciously finding our way around our own shortcomings. Imagine my frustration when I heard that one. Not only had I not become better, but I now had more work ahead of me to fix what i had personally broken. Correcting a habit is often much harder than building something new.

The same can be said for relationships. Feedback is hard to take. It’s uncomfortable. Frustrating. Scary. It can leave a person so vulnerable or frustrated they are put in a position that makes quitting look like the best way out. I remember my first performance review very early in my career. I was in tears. I was so upset to learn that what I thought I was doing was great, but not according to someone else. I left my bosses office that day and immediately started updating my resume. I didn’t want to face what I had learned. More so, I didn’t know how to move forward. But, one foot in front of the other, I did. I made the conscious decision to embrace the feedback as an opportunity to adjust. I asked my leader to help me. It became one of the most inspiring and motivating years of my career to date. It was the foundation on which I would later build my professional life. I still draw myself back to the many lessons I learned that year, and am so grateful for not quitting before I could make the adjustments and ultimately land myself back on the right path.

Today I am probably most grateful for that period of my life. It allowed me to grow both as a person and as a professional. It laid the groundwork for a lesson I would need both in life and in love. The ability to embrace and acquire feedback. Everything about who we are as people is a product of everything we’ve ever experienced in our lives. We’ve had the chance to embrace life’s lessons, or run from them. Although, I’m sure you would agree, when you fail to see the lesson in a situation, you eventually face a multitude of situations in your life all leading you back to that same lesson.

This happened to me in relationships too. I almost gave up, I had finally gotten so comfortable living my life alone that transitioning back into a relationship would prove more challenging than I imagined. I would need to lean again on this one life lesson, to actively seek out and embrace feedback. I needed to stop avoiding the things I didn’t want to know, things that kept me in the wrong relationships. I needed to stop keeping the peace, and worrying that feedback was all telling. I opened my heart and mind to the man in my life. Although early on there were moments I thought it might be easier to run. I stood still. I listened, I made small adjustments. I took the advice of my father who always told me, listen, adjust, keep moving. He helped me realize that once something is said, and an adjustment is made, it is history. Let it go.

Embrace the opportunity to know yourself. It’s your journey, and you are strong enough to make the adjustments to become the best version of yourself, in work, in life, in love.

A need to be needy...

Yes, that’s right, I wish sometimes that I was needier. In recent months, I’ve come to a very blunt awareness about just how independent I had become in my 4 years as a single person. Moreover, I can reflect today and acknowledge just how much society places value on that independence. Is our system flawed.

Historically speaking, relationships were formed on a need basis. Clear roles were assigned and those dependencies were the glue that bound two unrelated people together. For children and for income. Today, this imbalance has been levelled off. While I see that as pretty amazing, and certainly life altering, I cannot help but acknowledge the risk.

It is perfectly possible today for a single person, male or female, to have a child on their own. It is also common for women to be financially independent. These differences in our modern day lives have created an awesome opportunity for the evolution of relationships. Not to necessarily remove “need” but to change it. To change dependency for basic things to dependency for something much deeper, expansion. Growth as a person, a contributor to society. Yet, we fight that.

What do I mean by fighting that? After months of both thought and years of experiences, I recognize in myself the desire and success at overcoming the need to rely on anyone for anything. I also acknowledge, the deepest desire within me for someone to push me in my life. We no longer ask for relationships to “complete” our lives, but rather to ‘compliment” our lives. This is an awesome dynamic. However, I have come to realize through my own failures and successes, that the only way that is possible is to need.

At the core of it all, we, as humans are not as rewarded by materialistically satisfied needs, but rather, a fundamental, core level need to give, and need to receive. But have we given up the belief in needing as our “basic needs” in relationships have changed? When it was no longer acceptable by today’s society for women to need a “bread winner” or a man to need a child bearer? 

Worse, we live in a society that teaches us that “neediness,” almost as a black and white rule, is unacceptable. While this isn’t actually the hard truth of the matter, humans, in their need to “fit in/be needed” have hardened the rule, taking independence to a new level breeding a whole new culture of singleness. 

At the end of the day, I’d argue that the deepest emotional connections are built on the foundation of vulnerability, of the need to be needed, and the need to be supported, loved, nurtured and accepted. If this is true, than independence is wreaking havoc on our single world today. 

Perhaps it took someone strong enough to show me that they could need me, miss me, and love me for me to realize just how far I had gone in life to eliminate those very needs in order to fit into this needless and ironically isolated society. Food for thought… now I need to work on allowing myself to be needier, because that is the foundation upon which the need for my relationship has grown…and, I NEED to be loved. It brings me a level of happiness above what I could already bring to myself. I already have a great career, amazing friends, and a life I always dreamed of, but what I get from the man in my life isn't something I could ever give myself.