Why I Had to Grow Up Even Though I'm in My Twenties

I always detest it when people say cheerfully, “Change is good!”

I mean, change is very subjective. How can we possibly assume that all change is good?

Personally, there are a lot of changes going on in my life right now, and yesterday my head nearly popped off and rolled itself around on the ground at all the madness.

Firstly, my parents have decided to put our house up for sale and move us into an apartment.  They say home ownership is becoming too costly, they’re getting older and mowing the lawn and plowing the snow is not as easy as it looks.

Secondly, one of my sisters and I are on the outs. The last time we had a dispute it lasted three years, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this one followed suit.

Lastly, I’ll be attending a new campus this coming September. After spending the last four years familiarizing myself with the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus, I’m afraid of petty things; where I will park my car, whether I’ll find the washrooms easily or have an accident in the hallway, and whether the doors are push, or pull.

While all of these changes seem manageable, for some reason they seem to have been interfering with my life a lot lately.

Yesterday, to avoid my head popping off, I decided to go to my old elementary school to take a walk around one of my favorite neighborhoods in the city. The houses that fill the tree-lined streets are just beautiful. They’ve got big bay windows with beautiful panes and decorative doors, and long front porches that I would love to sit and drink tea on.

But when I turned into the parking lot, I saw my old school being bulldozed. As I exited my car and looked at the pile of concrete that had once been the place I made amazing memories, I had to answer one question about my resistance to all the changes going on.

What’s the real problem?

As I began walking, one foot in front of the other, step by step, I realized that the problem wasn’t that I was going to have to make small talk with people I did not know in the elevator until I got to my floor. I realized that it wasn’t about the fact that my sister didn’t care to speak to me, or that I would have to face the possibility of the door not opening if I leaned on it.

I realized that the problem was that I was going to have to grow up. And I mean really grow up.

Through all of this, my partner has repeatedly told me that I need to let things go.

“But how?” I sobbed to him with tears and boogers streaming down my face.

This was the question I would have to answer if I wanted to enter the next phase of my life with grace and dignity. I would be 23 years old in exactly 8 months and I had a lot of changes to make.

As I continued to walk, I felt the sun on my skin. Even though it was setting, it was still bright enough for me to feel the warmth of it touch me. And it felt really good. The warmer it felt, the more I was able to really understand the root of my emotions.

As I walked, I realized that I wasn’t upset we were selling the house. I knew it would be so much less of a burden on my parents. I had thought about this idea a hundred times over, more concerned with their well-being than waiting on an elevator. I realized that instead, I was upset that they hadn’t asked me about how I felt about it.

This was a good sign. It meant that, sure, I was an adult now, and wanted to be a part of our family’s decision-making instead of just dragged along in whatever worked best. Despite them being the parents and not really having to run anything by me at all, I wasn’t (contrary to popular belief) just a little kid anymore.

I was upset because I didn’t have a say.

When it came to my sister, I don’t think I was upset because she wasn’t speaking to me. I was upset about the circumstances surrounding the issue; the lack of closure. While explaining this to my partner, I told him, “I like there to be periods at the end of my sentences, not just ink that fades away.”

Truthfully, there was no period at the end of this sentence. There was no closure, no finishing statement. It was just one of those things that would hang in a cloud until someone decided to clear the air.

I walked back towards my car, parked in the lot of my old school. I stared again at the pile of concrete. I had flashbacks of recess, track-and-field day, and running long jump. I looked over to the two baseball diamonds I played slo-pitch on. The grass was growing over the gravel, what a shame.

Then I thought about how sad I had been to hear of this place getting bulldozed. When really, what did it matter? I didn’t go there anymore. It was no longer my school. It was just the school I had gone to at one point in my life.

It was then that I realized that I was too focused on the institutions where my memories took place, my house, my school, rather than the actual memories themselves. I was so fixed on cherishing the home of my moments that I almost forgot that the moments would have happened anyway.

As I walked back to my car, I hoped that my new school would have a parking lot just like this one. And I hoped that I would even be lucky enough to get a spot. I felt the fear of starting at a new place start to fade, and the excitement start to grow.

Maybe it wasn’t the fact that it was a new school, but that it was the last of two years that I would be a student. And truthfully, I loved being a student. I loved learning, I loved doing tests, I loved doing assignments, I loved reading. I loved the student life.

When I got home that night, I talked to my parents. I asked them if I could help in the search for our new place; townhouse, apartment, or shack. Surely, as long as I got to live with them, I would be fine.

And when I woke up in the morning, I apologized to my sister. It wasn’t about who was right or wrong, it was about the fact that I didn’t want to be the one who didn’t try to make it work.

And then I googled my new school. There is a parking lot. It looks just like the one my old school had. I even located the washrooms on the map. Couldn’t find any information about the doors, though.

I can’t say I always detest people who say cheerfully, “Change is good!” But maybe I can say I envy them. Because they don’t have to go soul-searching for answers to questions other people are too afraid to find out. They can rest assured that it isn’t about the change, it’s about the process.

And if there is one thing I know for sure, it’s that in life, we have to do one thing, and one thing only; trust the process.

Perhaps the reason change is so scary is because we become content with where we’re at, afraid that it won’t get any better than this. We’re afraid of who we’ll meet, whether they’ll be better than who we have in our lives already, and if the grass really is greener on the other side.

Why not just water our own?

But the refusal to believe that yes, there is better out there, illustrates a complacency that many of us, you and I included, are simply too good for.

So I can't face these upcoming changes with resistance. Instead, I can welcome them, walk with them, one foot in front of the other.

Step by step.

The Life Lesson Instagram Taught Me

Lately, I’ve been trying to revamp my Instagram profile.

As if I don’t spend enough of my valuable, irreplaceable hours on this planet surfing through people’s images of a life they want us to think they live, I’ve decided to “revamp” my profile.

Seriously?

Sadly, yes. Lately, I’ve noticed this trend of people cropping their photos, putting them strictly in black and white, or using only one type of filter and I feel like their profiles just look so much more sophisticated and clean cut.

So in true Stephanie fashion, I took my inspiration to the extreme and deleted about 200 photos from my profile, aware I might regret this later. (One time I wanted a fresh start so I made a new Facebook profile and lost a lot of my old contacts, photos, and posts.)

Yet here I was, ferociously tapping the delete button.

When Instagram had finally had enough of me and told me that I couldn’t delete any more photos, I complied and searched through popular images and people’s profiles instead.

It was then that I came across a girl who’s profile looked exactly like what I wanted mine to look like. Her photos were cropped, there were clean white spaces between all her photos, and despite the variation, they all seemed to be in uniform.

But as I kept scrolling, I noticed that she must have went through the same exact phase I did in wanting her profile to look more uniform. The more I scrolled, the less uniform her photos were. The more color there was. And the larger the images were.

I thought about the difference between her and myself.

I was trying to erase the past, and she was just building on it.

I thought, maybe instead of deleting my photos, I should just start posting them the way I want them to look. Why did it matter if my previous photos didn’t follow this trend?

Truthfully, I’m just an extreme person I assume, particularly after this event. I see to the very end of things. I try and look at the “big picture” even when the outline hasn’t been placed before me yet.

While it is a blessing to be so thorough, it prevents me from living in the moment, and in this case, remembering and sharing these moments with people who explore my life through my photos, and the instances I reminisce through my photos as well.

Then I thought about how seriously we, or at least I, take social media. Here I was completely restructuring my visual profile to appear a certain way to people I knew, who would certainly remember the time my profile was a mess, and conversely, people I had no idea even existed.

I learned a really valuable lesson in all of this.

The lesson is that one doesn’t need to erase their history to reshape their future. The same way a car does not need to reverse and retrace it’s route in order to take another direction. Sometimes all you have to do is make the turn.

I think ultimately, we allow things from the past that have no place in the present to haunt us and continue to remind us of who we were, and where we were in our lives, no matter how far away we might be from that place.

We hide these things from others, and in turn, ourselves, to try and forget that they ever happened, to try and forget that we were once and still are imperfect beings, when really, those imperfections highlight the most profound and unmatched beauty of being human.

Moreover, we place a sickening amount of effort in performing for other people. We accept things that deeply disturb us, like social issues, vanity, and other injustices, and become so entwined in our constructed fantasy that we, at times, even forget who we are.

So when I saw this girl’s page, it wasn’t just another page. It was a story. One that I, apparently, was too afraid to tell.

But if I don’t write my own story, who will?

If I continue to self-edit, scratch, erase, and highlight all things that should have been “cropped out” of Stephanie’s story, so to speak, who is going to display the honest me to the world?

Remember when I said that I would probably regret the deletion of 200 photos from my social media profile? Well that moment came the minute I realized that those were pages from my story that were violently yanked from the spine of perhaps one of the most amazing books to ever be written.

And certainly, they couldn’t just be put back in to place.

So from here, I know that rather than pretending to be something I’m not, being too selective in what I share and how I edit it, I’m just going to build on the foundation that I’ve built so far.

With all of it’s cracks.

And all of it’s my imperfections.

Asking (and Answering) This Simple Question Can Really Change Your Life

When I moved into my sister’s room almost a year ago, I hadn’t done much to personalize the space other than smother the walls in posters and paintings I had brought with me from my old room.

After sitting in it for months and months trying to decide what the space was missing, I came to the conclusion that a fresh coat of paint was just what it needed.

I knew that choosing the paint color would be the first hurdle because the last time I painted my room I spent $75.00 on paint, and an entire day painting only for the walls to go not even one shade darker than what they were before. But I knew the wonders a change of scenery could do for my aching psyche that had been promised an update for the new year.

So I called my two friends, Rebekah and Jasmine, and they agreed to help me get the job done.

I went in there with a pretty clear picture of what I wanted in my head. I wanted some sort of beige, not too light, not too dark.

But warm. The most important thing was that the color be warm.

But as I stood in the paint section of Home Depot, with about 1000 different shades in front of me, it became increasingly difficult to stick to my original vision.

Rebekah and Jasmine looked diligently through each paint swatch, bringing them to me in hopes of approval, selling each color to me as if it were a car.

Rebekah, who I personally believed missed her calling to be on the HGTV network, talked about “tones” and “shades” and “accent walls” and stuff. Jasmine on the other hand simply kept saying, “What about this one?”

It seemed that the more they talked, the less I knew.

Half an hour passed by before I felt myself losing hope. I wanted to call off Operation Paint.

Until…

Jasmine and Rebekah were off to the side looking at another brand of paint, getting ready to collect a handful of swatches and pitch their ideas to me, yet again.

But in their absence, I decided to ask myself:

“What do I want?”

I looked at the wall of colors and picked up a swatch, looking directly at one color. It was called Sand Motif. It was nice. It was beige. It was dark but not too dark. And it was warm. I put it back down and looked at the wall again. I saw a color similar to the one I had just picked up and grabbed the swatch. It was 

Sand Motif again.

When the girls came back over to me, each with about 15 swatches in their hands, I said:

“Wait. I’m gonna look at the wall, and whatever color I see and like will be the color I choose.”

A silent two minutes passed by. The Jeopardy theme song played in my head for the entire time. My eyes passed by a few colors that I liked from a distance, but nothing enough to pick up.

I caught my eyes wandering back to the same swatch over and over again, and decided to pick it up.

Sand Motif.

I looked at the swatch silently. And as the seconds passed by, I felt myself falling more and more in love with the color.

“Guys. This is it. This is the color!” I exclaimed, not realizing how excited I really was to finally decide on a paint color.

“Are you sure?” Rebekah asked.

“I went back to it three times without even knowing it was the same swatch. This is it. I know it. I feel it,” I replied.

The three of us jumped up and down and gave each other some sloppy high fives before excitedly approaching the counter to order a gallon of paint.

The moral of the story is that sometimes, no matter where we are or what we’re doing, everyone will be telling us what to do and how to do it. It’s up to us, particularly in those instances to be able to step outside ourselves, turn everyone else’s voices down, or off completely, and turn ours all the way up and ask ourselves:

What do I want?

Even if they’re our best friends, it’s us that has to make the final call. Nevermind what they want. Nevermind what they want us to want. Nevermind what they think.

When we were all done painting and the girls left. I put my furniture back in its place. And when it came time to hang up my posters again, I only chose a few. Because for once, I wasn’t so concerned with covering things up, but perhaps more interested in baring it all.

See, when you follow your heart and you trust your instincts, you have nothing to cover up. Or maybe you do but you don’t even feel the need to. Because you know that maybe it isn’t right for Rebekah or Jasmine, maybe it isn’t right for anyone else in the world.

But it’s right for you.

And it makes you look around before you turn your light off at night.

Or smile at the uncrowded spaces that were once filled on your walls.

It makes you feel warm.    

When I was in high school, I knew I wanted to be a journalist. But when it came time to apply to university, I didn’t listen to myself and enrolled in the history program instead. It took me two years to find out how unhappy I could be. I should've stuck to my original vision.

I’ll never forget the day my aunt asked me,

“Stephanie, what do you want?”

The words seemed like they were in another language as I repeated them to myself.

When I asked myself what I wanted, the answer was journalism, just as the paint kept reappearing before my eyes. I didn’t know how at home I was until I entered my lecture that first day, the same way I didn’t know how much I loved the color until it was all over my walls, good enough without the posters and the paintings.

So what is it that you want?

Is it a new job? A new paint job? A new car? A new life?

Sit down and figure it out. Make your way there. It might take a lot; it might be a few minor adjustments. But if it’s a process of moving mountains, stone by stone will eventually get the job done.

Whatever the case is, I can make a personal promise to each and every person reading this right now that asking yourself what you want, and then actually going after it will change your life.

Don’t believe me?

Just watch. 

Single? Me Too. Here's Why.

If you’re reading this you’re either:

     A)     Single

     B)      In a relationship that you want to get out of

     C)      In a relationship you don’t want to get out of

     D)     Hoping to get a laugh at what the skinny bitch has to say

Luckily for you, I’ve got something for each category of reader.

Let me begin this brief statement by saying 2013 was a very good year for me. I survived two and a half break-ups, two get-back-togethers, and lots of awkward encounters in between without having to change my number. I’ve made a lot of progress this year.

After watching my sister’s boyfriend execute perhaps the most insanely romantic proposal I have ever witnessed on Christmas Eve (yeah, Christmas Eve, can you believe this guy?) I started to panic. After the whole proposal ordeal was over with, everyone in the room looked at me as if to say, “You’re next”, and then the look of “Ah, who are we kidding? You’ll never get married,” followed.

But after a few days of evading stares I felt were coming at me from all directions, including the Rosie the Riveter poster I’ve got hanging in my room, I came to the conclusion that no one was looking at me like that. Sure, they looked, but that’s not what they were saying to themselves in their head.

I just thought that they must have been saying those things.

The problem with single people is that as independent as we may be, a lot of us live our lives through the eyes of other people. We get insecure about the number of people we’ve slept with because of “reputation” and “etiquette”. We feel we should be in relationships because all of our friends have partners and we don’t want to be the third, fifth, or seventh wheel on a group outing. We don’t tell our parents where we are or who we’re with because we don’t want them to ask too many questions about Mr. or Miss Two Weeks, and they can’t remember anyone’s name anyway.

But 2013 taught me to fuck all of that.

I don’t usually swear in my blog posts in case a future employer ever reads these and thinks, “How preposterous! She can’t possibly think she can write for our esteemed publication with such a potty mouth!”

But 2013 also taught me to fuck all of that too.

For now at least, I might have to delete this post right before I graduate university so read it now.

Plus, I’m not blogging so much as I am reaching out to my readers to share with them this huge piece of wisdom that many of you already know but I want to reiterate because, well, that’s what I do.

And here it is.

In love, you must not fight the current.

I have always believed that our parents and our grandparents were able to commit because it was so easy for them. They just met someone and settled down and had kids and raised families and…died.

But it’s a different day and age.

We’re afraid to give our hearts to people because there are a lot of terrible things they can do with it. And we’re afraid to hold someone’s heart in our hands because chances are our hands are a bit shaky. But we give our hearts to people anyway in hope that they’ll do good things with it, and we take hearts knowing that we very well may not.

If you think about it, all of that comes down to one thing, and that one thing is not being ready for love.

This year I learned that the reason my sister has a ring on her left hand is because eight years ago she entered into a relationship and decided that she was ready for it. She was ready for the good, the bad, the ugly, the hurtful, the miscommunication, the high fives, the lies, the truths, the victories, the failures, the pain, the agony, the tears, the beginning, the middle and the end.

The reason my parents have been together for just a bit longer than I’ve been alive is because of the same reasons as well.

So when I sit and wonder, “Why am I single?” The answer is because I am not ready.

But the problem with single people is that we keep forcing ourselves to be ready everytime someone gets engaged. We keep forcing ourselves to be ready everytime we think we find “the one” in some party or trashy bar or crossing the street with us or at our workplace.

But we have to realize that who we meet is nothing without the timing of when we meet them.

The other day, while venting my love trials and tribulations to someone, they said one of the simplest and most profound things ever.

“Stephanie, whatever you think you’ve felt thus far cannot even compare to the love you will have and share with the person you will be with,” then she said, “I promise.”

I’m not sure if it was the statement itself or the promise at the end, but I felt that it was safe to believe her. I felt myself ease up at once upon hearing her remark, and I gave myself an apology in my head. It went something like this:

“Dear self, I’m really sorry for being such a douchebag. You’re still pretty young and you have a lot of life left to go and you really shouldn’t even be focusing on boys anyway. School is a lot more important. And a lot more expensive. You should go to the library and rent some books instead.”

In that instance, I found my peace. I had my aha! moment. I felt the way Tom Cruise must have felt when he jumped on the couch except the love that I had wasn’t for Katie Holmes (although she was great in Dawson’s Creek).

It was for me. Just…me.

The truth is, I have probably met the man of my dreams fourteen times over and over again. But he wasn’t the man of my dreams because not even my dreams had solidified themselves at that point, and certainly not even this point.

So what is the big frickin’ deal with not having a date to stupid Christmas parties? And why does it have to be even numbers when people wanna go out?

We don’t. And it doesn’t. It’s just the way our society is. And who can blame us for feeling a little rushed and giving in to the pressure at times?

No one. No one.

So until then, I march on. Alone, but certainly not lonely. And not looking for love, but looking for myself.

I think I’ve found her fourteen times over but not even the woman I will become has solidified herself.

And that’s the key.

Some people find out who they are and what they want a lot earlier than the rest of us. Like our parents and our grandparents, who quite frankly had no choice, hence the marriages and baby-making at like, sixteen. Others need a lot more experience, encounters, time with others, and especially time alone to decide that.

So don’t feel like you need a passenger when you know your sports car only has room for the driver. Especially if you’re not ready to upgrade to a two-passenger vehicle, let alone a family van. Sure other cars on the road might be at full capacity, but you’re on the freeway.

And until you reach your destination, or the area signs tell you to slow down, change lanes, exit here or there, or pick up that hitchhiker, just ride the open road; enjoy the scenic route.

And no matter what you do, don’t fight that current. It's one of the only things that will get you to where you need to be.

The Power of Choice

Driving home last night to my favorite radio program called “Intelligence for Your Life”, I heard something remarkable. It went like this:

“The more choices we have, the more likely we are to sample more things.”

The host had been talking about a study that was conducted that proved that people ate up to 40% more at restaurants with longer menus.

This got me thinking about the place I used to be in my life where I felt that, for some reason, I had no choices. And I surely didn’t only mean food. Romantically, I felt my choices were limited. I felt that my options for my future were limited. I felt that financially, I would be stuck where I was. I felt very confined.

Over time, I opened myself up to the reality that the world is pretty big, and that the world is pretty much mine and I grew to realize and understand that there are choices everywhere.

When I first started dating, my logic was that if I always dated someone who was not as smart as me, not as good looking as me, and not as accomplished as I was, that I wouldn’t have to compete against other women and my position in his life would be secured.

For the longest time, I would date guys with criminal records, guys that already had a kid, and guys who didn’t work. I felt that because I had what they didn’t (except for the children), that they would appreciate me more.

The funny thing about men and humans in general, is that we are not programmed like that.

In fact, things worked the opposite way.

Because I was a little farther ahead than them, they used me and my resources to try and catch up. They weren’t trying to better themselves, they just wanted to reap the rewards of things they might not ever see without doing the work I had done. They wanted to be driven around in my car without having one of their own, use my money for things because they had none, have me babysit their child while they would do I don’t know what.

At some point in time, I got sick of it all.

I didn’t throw my hands up in the air and hate the rest of the world. I didn’t look at it as time wasted, or money wasted, even though there were times the money I spent on them would have come in handy. I didn’t hate these men, and I surely didn’t hate myself.

I realized there was more out there for me.

So I heightened my standards. I raised the bar so high that it may have been a little bit above me.

The thing is, if you don’t acknowledge your worth, and state that over and over again relentlessly, whether it’s out loud or in your head or to your friends or your potential partners, you will always get less than 

what you deserve.

The worst part is that you’ll be living in this crazy mental state where you can actually convince yourself you’re happy, but deep down inside the honest part of you is wondering why you’re selling yourself short.

I know there are a ton of people, young and old, black and white, who have either been in my situation, or are still in my situation. And I know that you wake up in the morning and feel a disparity between the love you have in your heart for your partner, and the love you want to have for your partner, that not even the crazy mental state can fake.

I know that you hear your own voice in your head saying, “I deserve better” everytime you get in an argument and they say something a little too mean, or slam the door in your face yet again.

And you know what? That voice in your head is right.

But for some reason, you won’t leave. You can’t leave. You feel like you’re in too deep. You have too many pictures together on social media and you don’t want everyone to know you broke up. Or, quite simply, you feel like you’re better off semi-happy with this person because you’re not sure there is more out there for you.

Please rethink that.

Ultimately, every second of your life is a time to be critical and a time to evaluate your choices. Because every second of your life you spend pleasing someone else at the cost of your own happiness is detrimental to your overall well-being and your overall experience of what it means to truly live.

The more you open yourself up to love, the more abundantly it comes to you.

What that means is, when you open your mind, heart, and soul up to love, it comes in your direction and flows through your body because you are able to receive it. It’s more than someone just saying, “I love you” just enough to get you to believe it, but letting their actions create doubt and fear in your mind and heart that it isn’t true.

Actions speak louder than words.

The thing is…we have this idea that the only love that exists is romantic love. So not true.

There is love everywhere.

Have you ever seen the greeting an owner gets from their dog after a long day at work? That's love. Have you ever seen the way a newborn looks at their mother while being breastfed? That's love.

All of these things are reminders that love exists, love is real, and love is waiting for you. But the kind of love you desire won’t come until you’re ready, and maybe even a bit after. Because you still need to spend time loving yourself. And over time you will.

Not in a narcissistic way, but in a way that you truly grow to understand why that voice in your head was telling you that you deserve better. You will even grow to believe that. And in time, you will respect yourself so much more for gathering the strength to walk away.

Ironically enough, sometimes the kind of love we experience can hold us back from the kind of love we should experience. Instead of opening the world up, it closes it, and leaves us with nowhere to turn, and no beautiful scenery to look at.

As short as life is, it’s also very long. And you don’t want the balcony that overlooks the garbage dumps at the bottom of your run-down apartment building. You want to overlook the water and have a city view. Don’t just settle for the unit because the landlord tells you there are no other units available.

You tell that landlord that you’ll find another building.

Having an abundance of choices does nothing if you do not have the strength to choose something other than what you've always chosen, or date someone different than who you've always dated. And you will never, ever know how good something on the menu tastes if you are too afraid to order it.

But the best part of all of this is that if you don't like it, you can send it back to the kitchen and order something else. You can ask the chef to make your dish a special way. And even then, if that chef says no, you can leave the restaurant and cook your own damn dish...

In your apartment that overlooks the water and has the city view.  

How Do You Know When to Walk Away?

Over the summer, I had a conversation with a girl I had only known as an acquaintance. We got into a pretty deep discussion about the idea of limits. She was trying to decipher when she was going to leave her boyfriend who she loved so much, but felt he was not treating her the way she desired (or deserved).

After explaining her situation to me, she let out a big hopeless sigh and asked, “When do I know it’s time to walk away?”

I looked at her, not with pity, sorrow, or sympathy. But instead, with belief. And I said this:

“If you’re still with him, it means you’re not done yet. It means you still have something left to give, and you love him enough to give it to him. So stay.”

She looked a little confused, hopeful almost, for more. Luckily, there was. Then I said this:

“But if you already see the end coming, chances are it’s coming. One day you’ll wake up and have nothing left to give him. Not in a bad way, and certainly not in terms of weakness. You’ll just be really done with him and the relationship and you’ll want better for yourself. Then, you’ll go get whatever that is.”

Two things about relationships:

It’s rarely ever the break up itself as much as it is the after effects. That’s why we get mad and dump our partners in the heat of the moment; only to rush back to them in a snotty hurry after the split up has just begun to settle in.

The relationship itself teaches us things about ourselves that we didn’t know. Sometimes finding these things out results in us and our partners being incompatible, and yet still we force our way into each other’s lives and wonder what the problem is.

The truth is that people just need to smarten up and bring their expectations back down to earth. We can’t measure emotional circumstances by time. We can’t put a deadline on when, wait for the clock to strike a certain hour before we leave, or threaten people that won’t change not because they can’t, but because they don’t want to.

It’s nonsense.

It sounds simple because it is really simple. The only thing that’s confusing about it is our emotions, and emotions will always confuse, misguide, and redirect us. But you find that equilibrium between your brain, your heart, and your gut, and you feel it out and follow it.

Don’t go comparing the new people that enter your life to the last one you had; they’ll never be the same. One might have terrible rhythm but amazing communication skills. One might not have the best sex but will do it so passionately that you’re mesmerized anyway.

As time goes on, you will learn.

You’ll learn about love, you’ll learn about life, you’ll learn things about your present partner, and you’ll probably come to understand things about your past partners that for one reason or another, you just couldn’t understand at the time.

But most of all, you’ll learn about yourself.

You’ll learn about who you really are. As close as you get to knowing, you never really know. You’re always growing and changing and evolving and opening up to life. You’ll find out what you like and what you don’t like, what you need and what you desire. The more you accomplish, the higher you’ll set the bar for yourself.

And you might even learn, as I have so many times, that after all this time, it wasn’t you.

It wasn’t your standards. No, they weren’t too high. It wasn’t that you couldn’t love him or her. It wasn’t that you weren’t good enough. It was never a matter of you two being soul mates, as opposed to two souls that just met and mated.

It was just that him, her, them and they just were not ready yet.

But maybe, you weren’t ready either.

Trust your experiences.

But more importantly, trust your gut. If there is still love and will in your heart, use it all up until there isn’t any left. And when you’re tank is all empty, go everywhere to fill it. New classes, new people, new hobbies, new alone time, new music, new writing, new books, and the list just goes on and on and on.

But never, ever, become a new you, before you try building on the foundation that was already there.

Because chances are, that foundation will fit perfectly with the life you have in store, which you will, just by grace, end up in, so long as you trust the process.