Becoming

I've been claiming that I'm "in a weird place" for a while now. Only, I don't tell anyone that because just when I think I'm over it, I enter a new plane and do it all over again. I am constantly changing, but barely evolving. I want so much to be something that gives instead of always taking, but I'm not sure enough of my purpose to go headstrong into something. I'm lacking the great motivator, the biggest purpose of all: Love.

Three years ago, I ended an engagement that was really ended for me when my boyfriend groaned about every step of getting married and, I later found out, slept with, went on dates with and tried to pick up dozens of women.

That guy was an ass and I start to see it more every time I go looking for it, but he wasn't the problem. There weren't just warning signs: He flat-out told me from the get-go he didn't want to get married, but we were so in love, I vowed to prove my worth to the world by being the woman who could change all that. I was stupid.

My issues go way, way back. Back far enough so that I think everyone else is perfect and confident, and I'm the only shit still continuing on. I need love and have always missed it, but have been keeping myself out of relationships by working hard on liking myself. It's slow. First, I have to get myself back to where I was before the cheating, before the grad school that actually made me think every person there wanted me to kill myself. I realize that former line screams paranoia, and I think that came with the territory of being beaten down verbally every day. That school was a true hell for me. The last few years have been unhappy, as well.

I think that I have made it through enough rough stuff for now. I see myself as happier, prettier, freer, more confident, and these are the years to live that way. To fall in love, to laugh, to joke over small things and make the most out of rainy days stuck indoors. There are the days for that, and they're few, and they are lonely when you keep yourself from enjoying them because you're waiting for someone else to enjoy them with you.