Trying To Move On? Read This.

Once, in an anti-smoking ad, producers sent kids to the streets on a smoke break.

They smoked faked cigarettes around adults that were on a smoke break as well. Nearly every single adult was bewildered by what they were seeing, and told them to stop. When the kids asked why they should stop, the adults said, “Because it’s bad for you.” And the kids responded, “Then why do you do it?”

Now that is a good ad. It gets the message across clearly and very effectively, but more importantly, it illustrates a very familiar human concept:

That many things are easier said than done.

Not swearing in fits of rage, not eating food we know is bad for us but tastes so, so good, and lastly, walking away from something we know is bad for us.

One thing I’ve been hearing about since my entrance into womanhood, and a thing that I have certainly experienced for myself at one time or another, is how hard it can be to move on from someone that does us no good whatsoever.

The tough part of this whole thing is that once someone enters into your life, it is next to impossible to imagine a life without them. Not everyone can be so easily dismissed.

What if the smoker never picked up the first cigarette?

A lot of people think that moving on is the part where you’re just over someone. You’re over their ways, your over their words, and you’re just so fed up. But that, simply, is just being over someone.

Moving on is different because you get to a place where you genuinely wish the best for this person. It might even mean smiling at them finding love with someone other than you. But most of all, it’s being at peace.  Peace with the past, peace with the present, and peace within yourself.

How does one find peace?

The best, and sometimes the only way to find peace, is to give it time. It is the most dramatic and cliché saying and suggestion, but that’s because it is deeply rooted in truth.

In many ways, a broken heart is like a wound. Sometimes it’s so deep and so internal you don’t even know it’s there. But after a while, the pain becomes unbearable, and you finally realize it. It then turns into a scar or a cut, and while it can be so present for the first little while, time passes and it slowly starts to fade away...

And even after it’s almost fully gone, you’ll see the little mark, the little difference between who you were then and who you are now.

Don’t be afraid to be changed by your experiences. Don’t apologize for being more careful. And don’t apologize for the steps you took to grow. You are the result of your life experiences.

But being bitter about the past is perhaps one of the most toxic ways to be. It disables us from truly basking in the greatness that is our present, even if it doesn’t feel so great at times, or ever. Because greatness doesn’t come from what we have. It doesn’t come from our luxuries or our ability to fulfill our materialistic desires.

Instead, greatness comes from being at peace. It comes from knowing that even if you were stripped of all that you had, you would still be at peace because of the greatness that lives within you.

So, if the greatness lies within us, why are we so caught up with people who only seem to take it away?

Simple.

We have not realized our greatness yet.

And to you, I say that you are worth the discovery of your greatness. And you’re certainly worth the discovery of your peace. You do not need to exhaust yourself with the process of trying to extract blood from a stone or assign meaning to things you know will mean nothing in the end.

You’re better than empty words and broken promises and repeated mistakes.

The good news is that you can still love a person and get over them, and you can still love someone and move on. But hate fits nowhere. Because all hate means is that a part of you is angry at the person, the situation, or yourself. And frankly, all three things go hand in hand.

Fill yourself with love. Look for love and light in everything that you do and everyone that you meet. Smile when you want to frown and be thankful when you feel there is nothing left.

I know it sounds like the most abstract and indirect route to getting to the place you know you need to arrive at, but there really is no final destination. Just a journey. And you ought to keep an eye out for the beautiful things you’ll see along the way.

So what if the smoker never picked up the first cigarette?

They would not have learned the beautiful lesson in finding the strength within themselves to conquer something they once felt they couldn’t.

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.