Young Love

This isn't really a post about how I met Tony so much as how I managed to screw it up the first time and require a four-and-a-half year gap of time for healing before either of us was ready to give ourselves another try. This post is about that and relationships in general I guess. They are so tricky at first and quite honestly, I wouldn't repeat my first experiences for all the money in the world. So just know that your initial ventures into this uncharted land aren't expected to be perfect. You'll all make mistakes and that's okay. Here are the mistakes I made:

1. Expectations. The only real examples I'd had about love, dating and how it all worked I'd gotten from movies and Teen magazine. Not exactly the best sources for legitimate samplings. For starters, movies almost always have happy endings and well, relationships rarely do or I'd have married the very first person I had a crush on and for the life of me I can't even remember his name (Greg or Phillip or something like that). Anyway...don't go into it expecting it to be your forever-after. Dating serves a purpose. You were attracted to that person for a purpose. Let that be enough. Give that the respect and attention it deserves without making it more than it needs to be. Pushing expectations onto every attraction and every date only complicates things and leads to hurt feelings. You simply aren't meant to marry every person you choose to date, not normally anyway. You'll hear stories where that's happened but the chances of it happening to you are slim so just keep that in mind and try to enjoy the movie k?

2. The past. Let it go. I never did. For the longest time I carried the hurt from past boyfriends and past dates on into the next relationship and all that did was make us claustrophobic. In any budding relationship there's only room for two people so before you say "yes" to someone new, make sure you say "goodbye" fully to the last one. And remember, this new person isn't the one who didn't measure up the last time or who broke your heart or lied like a cheap rug. So do yourself a huge favor and don't make the new person pay for what the old one did wrong. If you can't let go of the anger and pain, you simply aren't ready to date again. It really is that simple. Hang with your friends awhile longer and give yourself more time. Write a letter to your ex and get it all out and then burn it, bury it or hell, mail it (so long as it's constructive and true and not just a bunch of "I HATE YOU AND YOU SUCK!" because that sort of thing is better left in your own letting go process).

3. Know yourself. Keep in touch with who you are then accept and appreciate it. I'll let you in on a little secret: usually insecure people who don't want to accept responsibility for their choices will try to convince you that there's something wrong with you and that is the reason they don't want to date you. The truth is they just don't want to date you and are too chicken shit to just admit to that being their choice. It has nothing to do with you as a person though. In life, it's simply not possible for everyone to like everyone else. We're all too different and unique and come from varying experiences. The liklihood that every person you cross paths with will be instantly and forever attracted to you isn't very high and it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with where the other person is headed and what they want for themselves. Don't ever change who you are just to keep yourself in line with someone else's path because you have your own path to follow. Staying on your path regardless of the people along the way who come and go for whatever reasons will always lead you exactly where you are meant to be. As long as you live, you are your very best friend and you'll do well to remember that.

4. Fear. Start practicing now at ignoring it's seductive voice. Tell it to shut up and go away. Decisions made from a place of fear will only serve to limit you in ways that lead to more decisions made out of fear. It feeds on itself. When you are young and only have yourself to be responsible for...that is the time to kick it's ass. So start now and don't ever stop. When you make a decision from a place of informed power, regardless of the outcome, you have won. There are no real failures in life except to succumb to fear and stop trying. Afterall what is the worst thing that could happen if you took a chance on someone or something? Would you get turned down? Would you lose something? So what. If you let fear keep you from trying you haven't simply lost at the end, you've lost the entire experience and who knows how that will affect the rest of your life? It's these experiences that make up the whole of our lives and if you are to get to the end with as few regrets as possible, you're going to have to take risks. People risks, professional risks, emotional risks...tell fear to suck it. You won't be sorry.