everybody's gotta learn sometime

It’s strange to feel like I’m ready for a rela­tion­ship at only this point in my life. It did­n’t seem right that any­one should love me if I did­n’t love myself, and that did­n’t real­ly start until recent­ly.

It also took a good round of ther­a­py to fig­ure out that I was sab­o­tag­ing my rela­tion­ships so no one could have the chance to hurt me. If I con­sid­er which ones would have worked out had that not been an issue that caused me to break up with my girl­friends in order to pro­tect myself, I can only think of one. But that was a long time ago, and while we may have worked then, it’s no guar­an­tee for the peo­ple we’ve become, as I’m sure there’s been a lot of growth on both our ends. It’s only now that I feel like my per­son­al evo­lu­tion has reached a peak, a place where I’m sat­is­fied with who I am, and there won’t like­ly be any more dras­tic changes that may affect the dynam­ics of a rela­tion­ship.

I’ve been able to rec­og­nize that the risk of get­ting hurt is insep­a­ra­ble from the trust we place in the peo­ple we love, and that risk is always worth it. I’ve left behind my bag­gage, some­thing no one else should have to deal with, and I’ve had enough expe­ri­ence to know exact­ly what I’m look­ing for in a rela­tion­ship and what kind of peo­ple work with me.

Took me 30 years to fig­ure it all out, but every­body’s got­ta learn some­time.

One comment

  1. I ful­ly believe men begin life at 30 and don’t real­ly know them­selves ful­ly until 40 through 60 (free­dom, espe­cial­ly sex­u­al free­dom, being so mis­lead­ing and entic­ing into lack of focus).

    Women seem to tend to begin think­ing of a life with oth­ers by late twen­ties, but don’t usu­al­ly get to real­ly know them­selves until 30 some­thing or 40 either. Kids get in the way, gen­er­al­ly. Or free­dom’s dis­trac­tions. I was just think­ing the oth­er day that matu­ri­ty should real­ly be com­ing ear­li­er in our growth in soci­ety, rather than chil­dren com­ing lat­er and lat­er bio­log­i­cal­ly.…

    It’s been such a joy to see you rise up to a new plateau of calm, self-knowl­edge; self-assur­ance. It’s real­ly com­fort­ing. I hope for all good things for you, always, whether sin­gle or paired.

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