Sometimes you need someone to look you dead in the eye and tell you you’re okay. That despite the wild choices you made or the leaps of faith you took, the tailwind of overwhelm and confusion you feel is valid but you’re okay.
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My childhood bestie got married last week in always-sunny Mexico on a perfectly windy evening with the sand in our toes and salty tears streaming down literally every person’s face.
It was exactly the wedding she had always dreamed of. Her dress was magically flowy (illuminating her sea goddess glow), the setting was intimate, and the subtly crashing waves framed the entire scene like a moment captured in slow motion. Thirty-one people watched with welled-up gazes (I’m telling ya there wasn’t a dry eye on the beach) as her dad confidently, gently and lovingly handed over the beautiful bride to one of the kindest, honest, most stand-up guys I know.
We all danced the night away (right on the beach, I might add), got a little crazy (as only good weddings make ya) and serenaded the waves as they brought little moments of happiness back out to sea once hitting the shore.
It was bliss.
Not once in the first two and a half days in Mexico did I think I wasn’t okay. Until suddenly I wasn’t.
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I feel like I write about this a lot: loneliness, singleness, permanent-third-wheelness. But it’s a reality so many people my age face (though my recent wedding travels would calculate differently). And although it’s painful to talk about, it’s equally important.
No one wants to answer a question at any group gathering about having a significant other. This is my warning to you: If the words, “Are you dating anyone?” or “You're here alone?” or “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” ever leave your mouth, it’s guaranteed you’ll leave the person on the other end of that question walking away eight feet smaller.
When this happens to you so many times, you eventually make yourself numb to the thrashing assumptions and follow-up looks of “what’s wrong with her?” It gets so far and you’ve beaten yourself up to the point that you’re convinced no one would (or could for that matter) ever pursue you, find you remotely attractive or good enough. Like ever. Ever. Ever. (Ever). And somehow you learn to be okay with that.
Until all of a sudden you’re not because you see a glimmer, a possibility, a moment of electricity.
And it comes washing over you like the scalding Caribbean hot-hot sun rays. You can think of nothing other than wanting someone to hold your hand with care, someone to hold you with sincere protection, and someone to know your entire self.
And after it’s all said and done you realize, that’s okay too.
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We don’t love on each other enough. We don’t tell each other how great we are at being a friend, studying, running, or taking chances.We never stop to think to tell each other the interests we have in cooking, theater, social justice, worshiping God or trying so hard are exciting and good. We are too quick to judge and even quicker to compare.
We’re social beings (as much as I think I could live in the wilderness by myself, I think I’d go mad). And we need each other to feel full, to have purpose, and to live life with meaning.
So wherever you’re at right now on your journey: single and struggling, newly gushing and married, divorced and broken, widowed and empty, used-happy-confused-relieved-angry-afraid or all of these things at the same time, hear me when I say you’re not alone.
Go call a good friend, eat an egg and cheese bagel sandwich over lunch, and work out what’s going on in your heart and mind (even if they’re stretched in two different directions).
You’re here, right now. You’ve lived what you’ve lived.
And you know what? You’re okay.
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