The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired Girl- Volume 38: Alone Again, Naturally
This week, in honor of the upcoming Valentine’s Day, I am going to share my thoughts about romantic love, what I have learned about myself through romantic relationships and why I have come to feel comfortable being alone. I want to also share what I have learned about the importance of loving yourself and how that differs from feeding your ego. Bear with me, I found I had lots to say.
I have discovered that I do know how to love and love fully, but some do not. The reason I can now love fully is because I know myself, love myself and can keep my sense of self and identity while in a relationship. I also know how to give of myself and recently, have learned how to receive. I used to think I had to work really hard to be loved, to carry all the weight of the relationship, to do all the giving. I did this because I feared being abandoned and thought that was how I kept love. But, in the past few years I have shifted my mindset to acknowledge that I myself as my authentic self am lovable and I do not have to try so hard to make men stay. It has been a work in progress to get to the place where I can truly say that I am whole and authentic ad I bring all that to the table. I have also learned that those who are not whole or authentic or who are still working on past issues tend to love, but maybe not fully and not in a way that is right for me. When you go all in, know what that means and are able to give of yourself and accept what others can give, it can feel overwhelming for romantic partners. And for me, that is OK. Because if they are overwhelmed or not able to sustain a relationship with me, then they were not the right person. And love has nothing to do with that. I have been loved by people who still made the choice to leave the relationship.
Love is not all encompassing, it does not conquer all, and it takes more than what we label as love to make a romantic relationship thrive. I have also learned that romantic relationships don’t miraculously occur like they play out in movies. The reasons people enter them and sometimes feel connected and in love are a matter of proximity, accessibility and availability, and maybe timing. We will meet many people that are right for us at different times. Studies have proven that relationships are driven by proximity. So if someone moves around the block from you and somehow plants themselves at your house most days of the week, eventually, if both are single (or maybe not even single) a romantic relationship is likely to develop. It is not a mystery or magic that this happens. Hence the office romance or what I call spouse/partner swap where a man dates one of his ex’s good friends or vice versa.
So people will be put in your path, by choice or by chance, some will be right for you others will not and what is important to remember is that you can say no (even if you haven’t gotten any in a while). But that takes a strong sense of who you are and what you want. And I have learned not everyone knows the answers to those questions.
Loving yourself is truly important. That means having respect for yourself, knowing what you are worth and understanding how you want to be traded. I think people mistake feeding their egos with loving yourself. Feeding the ego is a selfish act that is somewhat narcissistic and has insecurity and a bit of self-loathing at its core. And being able to love yourself and be loved means, as many authors speak about, losing your ego. It is about having a full cup or a full bucket as Tom Rath puts it and filling the buckets of others with what is overflowing.
The most important thing I learned from my last relationship is that my visual impairment played no part in its failure. That was something I somewhat feared, that men would not want to date a woman with a visual impairment, but that was not the case. What I learned was when I devised my four basic questions (1) Do you love yourself and have the capacity to give and receive love? 2) Can you communicate your needs, wants, fears, hopes and dreams? 3) Do you know yourself and can you be real and authentic in a relationship? 4) Can you make a commitment and stick with it in rough times?) I forgot an important one, do you want and can you take a role in raising a young child, because I have one of those. Not everyone wants to do this and sometimes they may not realize it at first. I think in the next years, if I choose to date at all, I will allow more time to pass before I introduce my daughter and maybe I will ask more questions. Since it is still fresh, I am still processing how I will do things differently, but I know I will. Having to come up with a way to explain why someone she thought was going to be a part of her family was never going to see us again was heartbreaking. One thing that will not change is the work I have done to be able to forgive and release partners without anger or animosity. Doing this means I do not build up any baggage.
I feel fine not being in a romantic relationship, even though I enjoy male energy. Relationships take care and feeding, they are messy and unpredictable, chaotic and turbulent. And for me, that means exciting. But for others, it is scary and so they retreat to the safety and comfort of being alone. For me being alone is not by choice but by chance. I am not alone because it feels safe or easier, nor do I choose relationships for the sake of being in them because I am afraid of being alone. I am alone because I have not found the person who can be my partner. I am not sure when or if it will happen for me, but I know that the person will be someone who is whole, authentic, choosing to be fully alive, is in the second phase of life and is thriving and not just surviving.
Forrest Gump said life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get. To me, romantic love is like a box of chocolates. Except that I know that I like dark chocolate and I rather have it solid than filled with stuff (except for hazelnut or more chocolate). So I can see some of the chocolates are milk chocolates and those I can automatically toss out of the box. Then I can smell the dark chocolate ones to see if there is something like raspberry in them because you can always smell something super sweet. Then I can feel the ones left to see how solid they feel so I can be almost assured they are all dark chocolate or something fudge like and those I will bite. Guys, use a car analogy here like you can easily toss out all automatics and anything less than 200 horsepower. And sure you could drive a regular BMW or Mazda 3 but wouldn’t you rather be driving an M3 or M5 or MazdaSpeed3 (OK this was also my analogy).
So what does this all mean for others? I think I would repeat some of the themes I use all the time; be willing to take risks and let life ne messy, be comfortable with waiting for the right thing to come along, work on really loving and accepting yourself and know yourself and what you want in another person. Give yourself permission to be alone and know that it does not mean that no one wants you, just that you have not found it yet and that it has nothing to do with howl loveable you are or if you are deserving of love. Don’t settle for less than you want or deserve, because settling, as in a house, can cause cracks in our foundation and can eventually bring our house down. And step outside of your safety zone. They don’t call it falling in love for nothing. And falling again and again, just as in riding a bike or skating, is how we learn to be better at love.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Keep Moving Forward,
Beth (BLOVI) Medlock
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