A Decade of Lessons Learned

The girl I was at fifteen, emotional, yet strong, naïve, yet smart, confident, yet insecure, complex in my thoughts and feelings, felt incomplete and longed to have a boyfriend mostly for the sake of having a boyfriend. She couldn’t wrap her psyche around the concept of how less attractive and less charming girls could have that one thing she wanted and knew she deserved to have.

Even at times of weakness, the woman I am now is still puzzled by the matter, except now I realize that my life is complete. I am incredibly fortunate and beyond blessed to have incredible, supportive, and loving family and friends that fill my life with joy and laughter. I have a bright future with limitless possibilities and amazing experiences to encounter. I’m just ready for someone to add to and build on all the wonderful things already in existence.

She wished she was older, established, and stable and had created scenarios of weddings and million dollar careers and every other fairy tale ending she’d seen in romantic comedies. I’m sure she never could have imagined that the woman she would be 10 years later would be older, but not really established, and only stable after years of ups and downs and self healing, and lacking that fairy tale ending.

If the past 10 years has taught me anything, it is that life is not a fairy tale. Embrace that. Real life is about heartbreak and heartache and the strength of character you develop in your struggles enables you to sincerely appreciate the happiness and fulfillment that real life also brings.

As a girl of fifteen, wanting a boyfriend was also about wanting someone to buy me roses for Valentine’s Day so I could walk around the hallowed high school halls and have everyone look at me and think, “she’s lucky.” That girl envisioned nights of romance and love complete with candlelight and roses and the possibility of proposals.

The twenty five year old woman I have become, realizes that life isn’t so simple. Roses die. Candles go dim. And it isn’t so much about the ring, but what it represents. This woman doesn’t envision the colors of the flowers, nor the entrées being served at the reception, but she can vividly see a marriage and building a life with someone special, which is by far more important. The rest will fall in place in good time.

At fifteen, I sought love with the ones who were “hot” and hopefully nice guys too.

As a woman of twenty five, I have learned a lot about life and relationships and what matters in the grand scheme of life. Now the hottest guy is the one who can entertain me with good conversation, and still makes my heart flutter. When it’s not about where we will be spending the night, but about how I like to spend my time and what makes him smile.

In retrospect, while the girl I used to be had her flaws, had her misunderstandings, and had some jade colored glasses, she was stronger than she gave herself credit for and wiser than she allowed herself to believe. But because of who she was and what she felt and what she experienced, no matter how difficult, she enabled me to become the me that is happy, independent, and capable of handling whatever life has to offer next.