Exhibit A. Image courtesy of RunColo.
It's times like these (which are becoming more and more frequent, by the way) that remind me how happy and fortunate I am to be here. The other day, Liz mentioned how amazing it was to be so untethered, and I suddenly remembered that I almost changed my plans and stayed in RI. It sort of shocked me to remember how I felt six months ago. How okay I was with ignoring my hunger for adventure. How okay I was with forgetting my desire to push my limits and feel the discomfort that comes with real growth. I remembered how depleted I felt when finally did leave. I had given so much of myself to people back home, some who didn't deserve my energy and some who did; but either way, I hadn't left anywhere near enough to fill my own cup.
And that's the real beauty of being here. As incredible as it is that I live at the foot of the mountains, as amazing as it is to have such a breathtaking view every time I leave my house, as wonderful as it is to wake up to sunshine and blue sky nearly every day, the real beauty is in granting myself permission to just be. To write when I want to, to read when I want to, to be active when my body craves it and to look inward when my mind does. It's sort of like I'm dating myself, learning all the things I love and taking note of all the things I don't. I've tried to stop comparing myself to other people and start comparing myself to the woman I hope to someday become.
I've also realized something important about my attitude toward men. At this point, I'm not really interested in casually dating. In fact, I never have been. I tricked myself into thinking I was for a while; in fact, I tricked myself into believing a whole myriad of desires. But quite frankly, I'm deathly tired of bullshit. If it isn't going to be real, I want no part of it. That being said, as much as I want to be ready for the big guns, I'm not there yet either. All of this puts me in a sticky spot when it comes to dealing with the men I've met in the last couple of months. While some of them have been quite nice and clearly interested in me, I haven't really seen the potential for any kind of future. Besides, I don't know where I'm going to be in a year. Funnily enough, I said all of this last summer too. But did I listen? No. I played with fire, and I learned my lesson.
So, in short, I'm enjoying this opportunity to be blatantly selfish and focus on me for a while. I'm quite relishing it. I breathe easier when I'm single and until that changes, I'm (happily) on my own.
