Enough WIth The White Horse Already!

I never believed in The One. Whomever you choose to marry....well, you make each other The One.

Wise words and a huge relief for this City Girl that had been inundated with messages of Finding The One and Searching For Your Soulmate since she was a little girl.

I recently sat down to lunch with a friend and poured my heart out about love and relationships, marriage and other scary grown-up topics, and verbally processed through major life decisions that had been swirling around my thoughts. And the wisdom bomb she dropped was a huge relief.

Choose wisely whom you intend to be Your One and Only, but know that whomever you choose may not look exactly like The Knight in Shining Armor.

Some men are just men, not constant heroes who respond to my every whimper and sigh. And that's more than OK.

It was good to hear that the one we all look for – as well as all the other things in life one hopes will happen – may not look exactly like Prince Charming on His White Horse, but could instead look like real life.

And real life may actually turn out to be better than the fairy tale.

The Place Where I Belong

There's something so delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never can tell quite where they'll take you. Mine took me here. Where I belong. -Miss Potter

There's no name I'm aware of for that space in between letting go and holding on. It's that space of Just Being. That place where you allow things to grow and move. That area that allows a life to breathe. 

I moved back to The Beach 3 years ago next month. I had no plan for the first time in my life. I figured I would move back and the right opportunities would present themselves. I also knew on some level that I needed the space, my own space, to create and live and be.

I gave myself that luxury of living in that space of Just Being and I dare say I never left. 

And I didn't know where my plan of having no plan would lead me, but here I am.

I own 2 businesses, I teach 2 classes at the college level, and I write my own column for a local newspaper. I never thought in a million years that I would do any of these things. None of these things had ever been in any original plan I had drawn up for my future self. Not to mention the fact that I have been dating someone quite seriously for the past 6 months that I also had no plans to meet until much later when all of this career stuff could run itself. (As if it ever could.)

And yet this place of Just Being has turned out to be just right. It has turned out to be the place in which I belong.

Little Signposts

Sometimes, people like to bring things up from my past that really needn't be brought up. And sometimes, because I'm totally cool like this, I'll later hop on Facebook and end up comparing myself to someone or 500 someones just to drive those negative comments home to myself. And then I'll inevitably fall into a slump that deserves a blanket, big couch, and pint of ice cream to complete its pitiful look.

Sometimes, I'll do this at the least opportune moment so that I can feel awful when I'm, let's say, teaching a classroom full of students and can't possibly have the meltdown or pity party I want to have right at that moment.

Sometimes, I forget who I am, what I've accomplished, and what really matters and will ask the heavens in a shaky little voice, "Why am I here?" 

The question ridiculously implies that I've had no control whatsoever over my past decisions and that some Greater Being just plopped me down into a completely foreign place. And I think we both know that's not true.

And it's on days like those that I am grateful for little signposts.

The night of my stupidity and comparison relapse I decided to take my dinner break in the classroom. Almost all the students headed to the cafeteria and only one student stayed behind, pretending to not be hungry while surfing the internet. I began to chat with my left behind student about his low grade in my class and told him he was too smart to be failing when he turned around and with big eyes began to pour his little heart out to me about his personal life.

I let him talk and talk until he ran out of words about his hometown, how much he missed his family who moved away to the other side of the world the minute he left home, and how scary real life is for an eighteen year old kid. We talked about my first time away from home and how frightening it was to only be two weeks out of the house when 9/11 disrupted the world's plans and America's comfort level. I told him how it's always rough to be someplace new for at least the first six months. And he smiled. And he told me that I was right, he really was too smart to be failing my class.

He smiled. And he knew he was smart.

That was all I needed. I knew why I was there. I had always known, but sometimes I just need those little signposts, those little messages that tell you you're right where you are supposed to be and all is as it should be.