I typically am a person that says I live with no regrets...
That everything happens for a reason....
That's been pretty much a motto of mine for quite some time...
But as I sit by and watch one of my closest friends enter into a divorce and attempt to find her identity apart from what has been her other half of herself for years and years I realized something...
I do have a regret...
I regret not ever DATING MYSELF...
I regret not ever truly getting to know MYSELF without the attachment of another person making up my "other half"...
I regret not being my own WHOLE...
And not because I regret any of the relationships I've been in or things I've done and experienced ...
But because now I have a daughter...
And I stopped to think; there hasn't been an extended amount of time, since I was in high school, that I've really been "alone"...
Yet, someday I'm supposed to teach my daughter to fully love herself and be her own person and her own identity without relying on a man...
But I haven't even done that...
I guess it just made me realize that at any moment and time life can change, and people can be gone...and the only person you're left with no matter what; is yourself...
And while I wouldn't necessarily go back and do anything differently, I just wish I could insert a gap in the middle of all of it to experience this...
To just be me, to not wait on someone to ask you on a date and take myself. To be confident enough when they say how many to say 1. To order what I want how much I want and take as long as I want doing it. To take myself to the movies, whatever movie IIIIII want to watch, and get the biggest bucket of popcorn and laugh and cry as often as Id like. To wake up early on a Sunday and take that adventure you've been dying to do and not have to wait on anyone to do it with you...
My point is... if you know a young female, or someone struggling with finding their excitement in life, I urge you to suggest dating themselves, and taking that time for THEM, and do all they want to do. Because before you know it, you're entering your 30s and wondering where the heck time went... and kids restrict some of the "adventures" you can go on and risks you can take...
So, go on that adventure, watch that movie you want to, buy that outfit, cut your hair how you've been dying to try, sit at a booth by yourself, skydive, drive for hours with no place to go, buy that vehicle you want, travel, meet new people, re connect with old... LOVE YOUR LIFE...and most importantly LOVE YOURSELF <3
