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.

What does easy feel like?

Here I am, still pinching myself at how surreal it is to finally appreciate what the “right” relationship for me feels like. Just as everyone who has been there says, it’s easy. That statement for many years was like nails on a chalkboard to me. I fought to make the wrong relationships work. I didn’t get it. I can appreciate why they say you’ll just know, but that’s not very reassuring for a population of singles trying to figure out exactly what it is they are searching for, and how they will know.

After a few months of getting to know my guy, and reacquainting myself with what it is to be in a relationship. I can’t help in recent weeks, out of appreciation for just how amazing it is, but wonder what about this makes it so different. The truth is, everything. So, the only other question that remained for me was, why?

The answer for me is, everything is different between two people who are both equally ready and available for a committed and healthy relationship. A ready person has more patience, more acceptance, understanding, tolerance, confidence, stability, maturity and balance, among many other traits. 

If you were to survey the wisdom shared to singles, I’m certain you might agree one of the most common threads of relationship advice comes down to finding a person with whom you can be your true self. Let’s face it. No one is perfect. But the right person for us will allow us to be our imperfect selves, in fact, I’d beg to say they will allow you to fall in love with your own imperfections in a way that makes you realize those very traits you tried to hide from the world are what makes you special. The person who can accept and even embrace those is the person with whom you can truly just be.

A person who is ready wants to know all of your flaws, not to judge you, or compare you, but rather to understand you. That same person is willing to share their own flaws, in the hope that you too will accept them. There is no timeline or reference point upon which a person needs to become ready. It is unique to every person. However, it is important to appreciate that some people are just not ready. Some may never be. 

Someone who is not ready will avoid that level of vulnerability that is so vital to building the foundation of a great and healthy relationship. Trying to make a relationship happen when one or both people in a relationship are not ready is a recipe for all of the things that makes relationships not “easy.” The imbalance results in insecurity, distance, emotional withdrawal, avoidance, all those awful feelings that leave you spinning at night with a head full of questions.

I was so used to accommodating the stress levels and needs of others in past relationships by simply promising myself I wouldn’t take the distance personally when someone pushed me away. I busied myself with life and work and every possible distraction.

Over the past few weeks, I had the chance to experience a whole different side of facing a high demand situation in the life of a partner. My guy was preparing for his half Ironman Race that took place this past weekend. I told myself right up front, I would give him the space he needed to train and prepare in the final weeks leading up to the event, fully expecting our time together to grow slim. Yet, he surprised me. Instead of pushing me away, he pulled me closer. He allowed me to be part of his world. To know what he was striving for, excited about, fearful of, all of it. He not only let me in, he pulled me in. That openness and readiness struck me on a level I didn’t expect. I already knew I had fallen in love with this man. The day of the race, I wanted to simply stay out of his way, his head space. As a former athlete, I understood the focus and the nerves of a major event. Instead, he insisted I stay right with him until his start time. I stood on the beach while he finished his swim warm up. Just as he was about ready to join his starting heat. He walked up to me, threw his arms around me pulling me close, he kissed me and whispered “I love you, see you soon,” then turned on his heel and joined the group.

I stood completely still. I was puzzled. Everything inside me was all over the place, I almost felt lost. I immediately tried to focus, and told myself “move.” I convinced myself to walk back toward the beach to find his family. My heart fluttered. I knew exactly what had happened, I just didn’t know what to do about it. In that moment, I fell even more in love with this man. I missed him before he head even set out to start what would be a gruelling 5 hours ahead for him. I now felt part of it. I stood at every view point. Refreshing the IronMan App constantly watching for his Splits to update so I could figure out how long it would be before I’d see him at the next point in the race. My heart pounded in the minutes that passed by like hours as I waited to see that he had survived each segment of the race. 

It isn’t in the easiest moments that our relationship has grown over these past few months. It has been in the challenging and vulnerable moments that my heart has continued to open, and I feel my love expanding and growing in ways I’ve never experienced. It is the “easy” everyone describes. The way that I can be me, knowing he thinks I’m cute when I’m mad, beautiful when I’m a disaster, and adoring of my every flaw to a point that it no longer makes me uncomfortable. That’s what easy feels like…

Time - A building block for the foundation of a relationship.

There are more moments i can’t help but wonder why this time feels so different? How I feel so certain, secure and happy. How the past has finally been laid to rest in peace - how everything that has happened makes complete and perfect sense. Acceptance. While true vulnerability is no less frightening than it’s ever been, this time my feet are planted firmly on the ground. There is no need or reason to run. Why? How? Because my single most important love language is being met, quality time.

I can reflect easily now and see where I lost my way in the past. Why I felt so frustrated, afraid, uncertain and for a brief period - insecure. I was involved in relationships that would never have the chance to take off, and rightfully. As my mother always reminds me, the only way to really build a relationship is to spend time with the person you want to know. My friends have also supported this notion, making space in our friendship for me to explore my relationship without feeling pressure to fit it all in the way I’ve always done.

This past week - I had the chance to escape for a few days to Chad’s cottage. We had both had a crazy few weeks between our jobs, travel and his training. I hadn’t even realized until we were alone how much I craved the chance to just escape. To escape the stress, the distractions, and the every day demands of life. Alone at last, we shared a bottle of wine as the last of the sunset faded into the lake before us. There was quiet. The breeze was soft. I closed my eyes, inhaled and embraced the warmth of his strong hand on my knee. I held that breath, bringing the world inside me to a complete standstill. I needed to feel this moment, and I needed everything to stop long enough for my heart to feel the magic of this connection. I exhaled slowly, opening my eyes to look at him. The moment required no words. He turned, fixing his beautiful blue eyes on mine, and smiled. I squeezed his hand, and felt a shiver as the sun disappeared and the chill of the night air set in. He stood up, pulling me out of the Muskoka Chair and embraced me, we made our way back into the Cottage. 

In my comfiest pajamas, I curled up on the couch beside him to watch a movie. I couldn’t pin it, but I needed this escape, to recenter, to reconnect, to rebalance. I needed to find quiet to check in with myself, my heart. After four years alone, the past few months had been surreal. A person who made the time. Who put priority on building a relationship. Who, like me, believed.

We spent every free moment walking, talking, sharing. We cooked together, ate together, relaxed together, exercised together - we grew together. With the freedom to be ourselves, we explored the boundaries of who we were as individuals and together. We each sought to understand each other in a new way. Not to be like one another, but to appreciate how we could support each other. I wanted to know how I could support him both professionally and in his personal goals. I felt the reciprocal from him.

At the end of the day, perhaps where or how we meet someone, how long we’ve known someone, how much we want someone, how hard we try are really not indicative of the likelihood of a relationship getting off the ground. Perhaps there are no rules, no timelines. For me however, the time invested has made the difference - relieving the uncertainty, providing security, building the connection. For every person who’s ever made the excuse “i’m busy,” I can finally say with truth “we all are.” You make the time when you want to. Chad and I both hold busy jobs, and social lives - when you are ready, and interested, there are no excuses. You want so badly to share the moment, you create them. 

If you’re making excuses for a busy person, or you are making an excuse to someone else about how busy you are - I can only urge you to be honest with yourself…

While there was a time I believed that a relationship might “restrict” my life to some capacity, I now firmly believe it to be just the opposite. I feel supported, freed from the worry and encouraged to grow and expand both as an individual and within a partnership.

Rediscovering Freedom in a Relationship

All my life I had visions of everything I ever wanted in life. The dress I would buy for a special event, the career of my dreams, the home, the life, the man… I never found any one of those dresses. I found better ones. As for the rest of life, after many ups and downs, I finally traded that vision for hope.  Hope in my heart that whatever was coming would be better than I could imagine anyway. I gave up the frustration, the search and the disappointments in that same trade.

Life evolved. I settled into what I finally considered an amazing life. Yes, Single. I moved to the City, grew my social network, focused on my career, and took many steps forward. I decided I’d figured it out. Opportunities I had never imagined came my way; events, people, new challenges, life experiences - I had the chance to walk a long road back to who I was and away from what I’d become. To rediscover the soul at the core of my existence. What made her happy, what she really wanted. To let go of what I had learned to want from the world. I had never thought it would be possible to simply enjoy the freedom of being on my own. It felt unnatural and uncomfortable for a while. To wake up each day and do WHATEVER I wanted. To be accountable to no one. To live a selfish existence after years of believing I was responsible for holding up the world around me. Turns out, it never needed my help in the first place. Life carried on with or without my input. People were living their lives as they pleased, and it was time I finally started to live my own. 

Stumbling, I began to explore the edges of my existing boundaries, gradually expanding them and my comfort zone. At ease in my own skin at last, I lost interest in dating. I was busy enjoying the life I’d discovered. Spending time with friends, exploring new passions. Tired of the disappointments, lack of connection and time sacrificed in the dating world, I wondered if perhaps I was better off alone. I questioned if I would even know how to function in a relationship anymore. My new life was pretty full. I promised myself I would embrace it, and before long, I fell in love with the life I was living.

Just as I’d been promised, when I least expected it. I met someone. All the time I’d spent becoming the strongest version of myself, I suddenly realized I’d never felt weaker, so vulnerable. Here I’d figured the hardest part in life would be going it alone, but I discovered, although I had wanted love so badly, I was afraid I might not know how to share my journey anymore. I had become so independent and after so much work mastering it, I didn’t know if I wanted to give that up. Would I have to give up the life I had come to finally love so much? 

No matter how strong you are, how mature, confident, secure, stable you are, when your heart belongs to someone, all of that strength fades to the background. It would be easier to stand naked in public than to hand someone your heart, and with it feel every hidden insecurity and fear bubble up to the surface. Every wall you’ve ever built falls down, and you realize the power of the person who stands before you, holding your heart. You’re free falling without a safety net, trusting this person to catch and hold your heart softly. There are no certainties, only hope, love, and the strength to bravely learn to walk all over again on new legs.

Managing to take those first few awkward steps, stumbling but without tripping over your own two feet, when you realize you’re no longer walking alone. Now, you must learn to lean a little while together you find an even stride, where walking arm and arm is smooth again.  You can exhale, because even if you trip, that arm around you is strong enough to keep you from falling. The only effort required is the desire to keep the pace, let go and learn that you can lean a little when you’re unsteady. 

As for giving up the life I loved, with the right person, I know I will never have to. Love is freeing. Love is supportive and enriching. Love is the desire to fit in, not interrupt. To grow together, not change directions. It is the support to let go of the questions, and begin expanding in every other area of life, to continue to evolve as a person, without the weight of worry or need to go it alone.

Make Space - It's not "their" words and actions, it's yours...

It’s a common expression in the dating world, words mean little, action says everything. Yet, I have to call myself out on something, and I don’t think I’m alone on this one. There have been many times I have “said” something, more to convince myself I meant it than because I actually did. Like, “I am happy alone” or “I don’t even want a relationship” or “I don’t care” or “It doesn’t bother me” or “I believe I deserve more.” 

What words did you just play through your own head? There are many many statements I’ve made to myself and to others. The truth is, I wanted so badly to believe them that I just kept saying them. But there was a clear difference between the times I felt them, and the times I just said them. 

In hindsight, after the end of various relationships, I would tell my friends, family and myself that I was over dating. That I didn’t care. That it didn’t matter, and that I was perfectly happy alone. I even believed myself for moments at a time. But then came that clear moment where even I knew it wasn’t true. The nights I went home alone and wrapped all of the pillows on my bed around me so I could pretend I wasn’t. The nights I prayed that my heart would be filled with love so I wouldn’t need to find it somewhere else. I could put on a brave face day after day for the world, but I went home at night to face the real one. To look in the mirror, and wonder, why? If the emptiness would ever go away. If the thoughts of what went wrong in the last one would ever leave my mind.

It did, and I learned. I began to understand that it would take work. That I could say anything I wanted, but until I really felt it, lived it and breathed it, nothing changed. After sitting in my own mess of emotions a few times, I felt the release. I felt the weightlessness of my actions and words aligning. The weight of the questions and convincing lifted. Within days, every single time, I met someone special. Like so many had reminded me, it was every time I least expected it. Moreover, every time I actually said and meant that I was happy.

What are you saying? What do you ACTUALLY believe? You might as well look in that mirror and get really honest with yourself. No one else knows or cares if you mean it. No one else will put their head on your pillow and hear your thoughts at night, your worries. Those precious moments are yours to live with. Are you using words to avoid facing what you actually feel? There is nothing more beautiful and releasing than just allowing yourself the freedom to feel, to endure, to let go of whatever it is you are pushing aside. Believe it or not, it might just be the one thing that is occupying the space in your life that is needed to make room for whatever is coming next. Can you tap in, feel it, and truly let it go. Make space…