Throughout my life I've gone back and forth about the concept of, "The One". People talk about how you should feel when you find that person, and I felt exactly that with my first love. However, I was also a teenager all full of hormones and naivety and I didn't grasp just how much care fated romances required. Then I was forced to reassess whether I believed we each get only one shot at the whole happily ever after thing. If I truly believed that, and I did for awhile, then I was fucked because my ever after was gone. It was that thinking that played a part in how I spiraled over the next few years. I went from relationship to relationship, half-assing my way through each one and downplaying how unhappy I was. And then I met G and re-examined so many things. From night one I knew we had something. She conjured up so many emotions I hadn't felt in eons; nerves, excitement, euphoria. But simultaneously I also felt this calm that I'd never experienced before. It was wild. Falling for her was effortless but, though I was a decade older than when I'd first fallen for someone, we both still had trouble grasping just how difficult being in a long haul relationship was. G is one of those people who is in love with love, but often doesn't know what to do with it when she gets it. She's notoriously indecisive and had a tendency of letting others get in her ear about what her next move should be, both in her relationships and in her life in general. Meanwhile, I was happy as a clam to be with her but had not yet found myself or made peace with my past and that bled into our relationship. She was happy but too in her own head to just let go and see where we went, and I was happy but too wrapped up in believing I wasn't worthy of what we had. It was right person, wrong time for both of us. But the way she made me feel alive, after years of wishing I were gone...that was amazing. So much so that I took any and every opportunity to bask in that feeling and willingly ran back to her when she called, even when I knew it was temporary. She often pulled back from our hook-up situations because she said she couldn't take the way I looked at hher when we weren't a couple. She could tell I was still just as in love as I'd always been and it made her feel bad, since she saw our end as her fault (even though it wasn't). Our relationship changed something in both of us. It illuminated our paths, in a way. G needed to learn how to just be and not overthink everything, and I needed to learn how to love myself (as cheesy as that sounds).
G turned 34 late last year, shortly before we came back into each other's lives on a semi-regular basis. Year 33 for her had been incredibly transformative as she was finally forced to deal with every last demon in the months leading up to her son's birth. G is one of those people who will do for everyone else before focusing on herself and what she needs but, ironically, she was able to get that in check whilst in the process of becoming a mom. She had a habit of putting away her feelings and her disappointments and not revisiting them, if she could help it. She did this with the end of our relationship and threw herself into going out on the town all the time as a means of coping. Pregnancy hormones being what they are, she started to go over everything in her past with the intention of figuring how she'd gotten from Point A to Point B, and how to avoid making the same mistakes over again. Through that process, she learned that not everything people say is said with good intentions and sometimes you have to make your own decisions and fuck what everyone else thinks about them. They say not everyone has the same heart you do, and that's especially true with G. She has the biggest heart of anyone I know, she was born to be a mother, but she didn't know how to pick her battles, so to speak. We've both marveled at how the other has ended up right where they need to be, and the version of themselves they were meant to be. Much has changed since our time together. But some things remain the same.
You need people in your life who motivate you to be better and who are willing to lift you to that higher space when you can't do it yourself. I always felt better with G. She knew I was a mess in progress when we began but she was undeterred and her belief in me motivated me to want to be better everyday; a better friend, a better partner, a better human in general. And while that sort of started me on this whole self-love journey, I didn't realize I left a part of that behind when we split up. That relationship was probably the one time I was truly at my best in that I applied myself every single day. I didn't have to hide when I was unhappy or when I felt like we just didn't have "it" that day. She always pulled me back into the fold and I did the same for her on the off days. I haven't had that motivation to be better since we broke up. Yes, I have motivation in a different sense with Miss N, but that's more not wanting to screw up my kid too badly so I gotta try and be a decent human being. With G, it was more of actively wanting to better each day, wanting to match the level that I felt she was on. And isn't that what relationships are supposed to be? Two people who are not perfect but are willing to work everyday to help each other become better versions of themselves? If you're not growing a little each day, then what's the point of living, you know?
I've been single for awhile now and I've felt some kinda way about it that I couldn't quite figure out. I didn't mind it and I'm not clamoring to be in a relationship with the next chick who comes into my life, but I felt...something. And I think this is what it is. I want to be in something mutually supportive where both of us grow on a daily basis, both as individuals and as a couple. It's easy to say the bad times shoud make ya'll grow, but it isn't just about that. Great relationships put you on a different level and change your view on life. Knowing that somebody has you back no matter what is almost like cover and empowers you to go out and take risks and be the best version of yourself. They make you want to do that, not have to do it. The right person won't want to change you and won't see you as needing to be fixed in any way. The right person makes a world of difference when you've spent your life with the wrong people. As long as you're open to it, anyway. I probably was a little closed off to the right people post-G because, in my eyes, no one could ever compare. And now that we're friends again, I get pangs of that every do often. I think I need to actively date more and figure out what I want and need in a relationship. I've become too comfortable with being by myself. I can't just sit on the sidelines and wait if I really do want to be in something.
