When I was younger, and even sometimes now, I always thought I needed true love to fix me. We are constantly bombarded with this image of a helpless woman being saved by true love's kiss. We're taught that a knight on a white horse is going to come pick up our broken pieces and put us back together.
So I waited...
And waited.......
I waited for someone to show up and somehow make me realize that I could be salvaged. That I no longer had to be the sum of broken parts that I had become. I waited for that person who I could come home to and spend my life with because I was shown that it was necessary.
I came to a fascinating and wonderful realization today (while dancing in the shower mind you) that you do not. You do not need some person to come save you. That person could try, but the only person who can save you, is you.
You do however, need true love. My true love comes in numerous forms. This is my love letter to you all and my thank you for somehow putting my pieces back together.
I have found myself in a place I never thought I would be. I am in a place far from the friends and family I grew up next to. I paved my own way here. There was no ounce of recognition for the first few years I lived here and no one asked if I was related to Mel (my darling mother who held so many different jobs in town that I SWEAR she knew EVERYONE). For a very long time, I felt alone. And. It. Was. MARVELOUS. There is something magical about when you finally find yourself alone after feeling like you answer to so many different souls. There is something absolutely fantastic about leaving work and realizing you don't have to check in with anyone. You are you're own person. You are entirely free.
Then it happened. I realized that I had somehow, over the course of years, surrounded myself with some of the most beautiful, kind-hearted, sarcastic, hilarious, glorious people I have ever met in my existence. This is not to in any way discount the people who came before. To those people, you brought me to this place. You made it possible. You did it. However, the people surrounding me now make me feel like I can accomplish anything. They make me feel like I can be this person with pieced glued back in and still be worthwhile. True love did play a role in making me whole again, it just wasn't the true love of one person. It was a symphony of love and caring and wonder from multitudes of people.
The people who sat and listened while I cried during the worst week ever. The couple who sat with me the night before I had to move out of the apartment my boyfriend and I shared because we had broken up the previous week and I was so distraught over the concept that I drank until I couldn't see straight. The various people throughout the past few years who have given me love and acceptance.
Most importantly, my family. I have a wonderful mother, father, and sister who I adore and would give my life for. But this is not for that family. This is for the family I have created over the years. The people I have slowly realized that I cannot live without...
My healing began with a bar full of regulars. Sure, they were a little rough sometimes, but over the course of years they have become my people. They are the people I love. They are the people I cannot do without. They have watched me soar and they have watched me plummet but no matter what happens, they have found a way to support me and hold my hand through it all. They are the people you want to end the day with. They are glorious and they have somehow brought me with them. They have taught me to never question myself, to honor my own thoughts and opinions, and most importantly, to always be patient.
My healing continued because I became surrounded by the best teachers in the world. Each year, I see teachers come and go. We socialize, we get to know each other and we care about one another. I have surrounded myself with some of the craziest bunch of people I know but they have all found a way to support me. This year, I decided to stop hiding who I was and stop trying to make sure people were comfortable around me. This year I decided to stand up and have a voice for all of us out there who were hurt my someone and never said a word because they didn't want to deal with the trouble of it all. I look back on myself at 22, sobbing on a stoop, telling my dad for the first time. I look back on the next day and the entire summer afterwards and having to relive it over and over again to try to get my mother to understand that I didn't blame her, it was out of her control, but of course I was pissed that it happened to me. I don't know that girl anymore.
It feels wonderful.
Do I still feel sad and lonely sometimes? Of course. But I'm me again. More than that, I think I'm the best version of me that I have ever been. This is because of my family. My hundreds of dysfunctional people family. The people who I have told about my life who choose to love me and support me because of it (not despite it).
The point...find the people you love who will love you back unconditionally. I've learned that none of us have just one true love, we have many. And that is a beautiful, beautiful thing.
