The ONE

It’s February and thoughts turn to love. My previous post wasn’t the mushy, head-in-the-clouds read you’d usually expect on Valentines. I guess my friend’s situation pretty much got to me. And it still has me thinking until now. We’re always talking about the “ONE”. The one person meant to fill the emptiness, the one person to make everything all right, the one person who fits you perfectly. Personally, I’ve always believed in it. That there was someone out there God meant just for me. And I kept believing until the day he came into my life.

However, my belief evolved over the years. With the help (?!?!?!) of a few broken relationships, I realized things weren’t that easy or clean cut. No man was going to come along, sweep me off my feet and carry me off into the sunset. Playing damsel in distress and waiting around for someone to save me wasn‘t going to work. There’s no such thing as Mr. Right… that idealized version of a man that we carry around (one slip-up and he‘s done for!). Your soul mate doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s “it”. But knowing when to let go was the hardest lesson of all. We all have this tendency to hold on to our past because we were happy then. And we think that if only the other person would realize that, everything would turn out fine. It took me a long time before I finally grasped that I was selling myself short. Another lesson: I didn’t love myself enough. So I let go (though my heart was a little slow on the uptake) and concentrated on enjoying life and not worrying about finding the right person for me. Patience was something else I imbibed. And when I did, the one I let go of came back to me. But things were different now because he’d also had his own epiphanies and now he knew what he really wanted. And that’s how I found my one (or he found me).

I do believe that God has someone for everyone but it doesn’t mean that he or she is going to drop down from heaven into your waiting arms. It doesn’t mean that that person’s going to be your perfect match. We’re all flawed, one way or another. It’s still up to us to make that person the right one for us. Love isn’t merely a feeling… It’s a decision. A resolution to love that person, warts and all.

But then, that’s just me.