2. light in the lone
I am the happiest I’ve ever been. And yet on paper, I am the same version of myself I was 2 years ago, even 4 years ago. Society teaches us to quantify our lives to find their meaning, stacking the things and people we posses like a banker counting money. But the truth is, I am with and without all the same things and yet the meaning of my life has shifted significantly. The meaning of my life resonates differently within now. I took my stack of one’s and saw five dollars, instead of seeing ones and wishing they were fives.
In fact, I am as alone as I’ve ever been. I have more friends than middle school me could’ve ever dreamed of and still I choose my solitude over social gatherings day in and day out. The same solitude I used to see as a curse cast on me for being unlovable (which is bullshit, we are all LOVABLE) is now time valued and appreciated with myself. I have been freed like this in so many ways. All the puppeteer strings have been singed and burned to the ground. I dance amidst their ashes.
I no longer attach my identity and self-worth to a career that was built to distract me from ever knowing my true identity and self-worth. Where there was once anger and jealousy is now a steady breath, inhaling and exhaling. I am at peace M-F, 9-whenever.
I have the strongest yearning for a love like no other but only because I now have the clearest picture of what that love would look like, what it would feel like. And yet still I am without it. But no less happy because of its absence. Every once in a while it’ll bring me to tears, but the wave of emotions feels more like a current moving in the right direction and less like waves crashing into an icy shore, as it once did. I take solace in knowing that all of the happiness I feel today is directly due to the love I have given to myself, from my self. I took a full year off striving for external validation and a full year of practicing the relentless gift giving nature of self-love. I have given the love time and time again, and I have received the love back from myself every single time. And in the end I became the light I had been searching for in someone else.
I have reaped the most worthy pursuit of all - freedom of mind. I have so much light radiating from within that I can choose any love I want. There are no qualifications for it anymore because no matter what form it comes in, considering its appearance and strength - I don’t need anything from it. I don’t need anything from a love that I don’t already contain within me. I transformed my deepest depths of darkness into the purest light of love, all by myself. Now, my only goal of union is the free exchange of love. While knowing these strengthen the love I contain within me but can never detract from it.
I have been alone most of my life, but for the past year I have been in love with myself. And I am so grateful that I’m the one that’s been by my side through it all. It was really fucking hard at times. But this journey of learning how to love will be mine forever. I took myself on dates. I opened fancy bottles of wine for myself. I got up early and took care of the apartment so that I could spend the rest of the day relaxing with myself. I made coffee and got back into bed with myself. I took myself on vacations and fell in love with myself in the bubble bathtubs of 5-star resorts. I did this all for me. This was all me. And now that it is in my posession, no one can take it away from me. I used to be fragile, now I am who I want to be.