Hey you,
The inspiration behind this post happened in a café conversation with a new friend where we discussed several issues relating to human relationships and how tragically monogamous relationships end, often due to betrayal. In that conversation we traded lessons from break up and what some failed relations taught us about love and loving…but that is not what this post is about…
Rather, I flagged a conversation where a guy I was seeing said to me, “Your being single at this age is a red flag” I remember that at the time I heard this statement, I was deeply offended by the severity of the unfairness this statement levied on me. I tranced back to all the relationships that didn´t work out simply because they weren’t just right, I thought about standards I couldn´t compromise simply because of my search for “the one”, the many times I have heard that intelligent and assertive women scare men and I wondered if I was supposed to condone ignorance and stupidity in poise for a man- what kind of man will I get at the end of that?
I thought back to the many times I came to realize the comfort in my skin, my solitude, my loneliness, and how I would not trade these positions for less than the communal beauty I can already offer myself. How my sanity and well-being rank higher than forced companionship just in the name of social compliance.
Back to the conversation with my friend, I asked “How can you make someone like you?”. The response blew my mind because it was something so ordinary, something I already knew. You cannot make a person like you.
Sometimes, you can be disliked or dislike a person for no apparent reason, oftentimes time, it could also be attributable to an intrinsic bias deeply embedded in one’s subconscious or even simply because you are all out of likeness. At some other times, we dislike others simply because what they represent irritates our insecurity.
The opportunity this conversation presented me was to look away from myself for a minute to the other possible perspectives at play. I was able to perceive that the person who uttered this statement was possibly also working under the delusion that everything can be explained and planned for, that we have control over how other people treat us or choose to act towards us, that our opinions- brilliant as they may be, largely matters in the life of others because we think we validate their existence by our acceptance of them. The erroneous belief that the success of any relationship mostly lies with the woman, how she behaves towards the man, strokes his ego, supports his dreams, and all the other possible traditional models on partnering.
No doubt, I hold a different ideology from these but in that moment I internalized the possibility that I was the problem and that something was “wrong” with me surely. Forgetting that relationship takes two people to create but more often than not, it takes one person to quit, ruining all the possibilities of the numerous dreams and futures one had hoped to create.
Then I listened to a podcast episode of “What Now?” by Trevor Noah where a contribution on how we viewed romantic partnership was discussed fitting this conundrum I am starting to define… How the most important relationships in our lives like the ones with our parents, partners, and friends take shape on their own without our needing to define ourselves by how they turn out especially since we don´t meet an orphan and ask What did you do to make two parents leave you? Through this conversation, I affirmed what had been lurking at the back of my mind for a while now, it is possible to participate in a breaking without being responsible for the breaking.
I think one of the greatest ambiguities of being human is how easily we forget. It is good when we easily forget pain or move on from loss but it is also that ease of forgetting that makes us disregard our fortitude, privilege, gratitude, our awesomeness. Hence, the most productive thing we can do with living is to remind ourselves constantly of the things that matter.
Remind yourself that all you are now is not all you are always going to be, that you are becoming, that there is more of you to behold, that you are lovable, that you can be and are kind, that the trauma won´t always be heavy, that the things that are meant for you will stay and if they leave, goodness will replace the void.
Remind yourself that you carry within you an illumination that cannot be diminished, that you are one of a kind, not special or different, just uniquely you, perfectly glorious, full of wonder. Remind yourself of the love you have within and around, the numerous smiles that you will produce and that your people will find you.
Remind yourself about all that you hope to become because the most powerful stories are not just the ones we tell ourselves but the ones we remember and live through…
So, set all the reminders you need. Create an alarm saying “Time to bask in your gorgeousness. “
xoxo,
Dcconoissuer.
Connoisseur of Memories 