this is where i wanted to be.

this april will be 2 years of living the single life.  i'm not going to lie - i've loved it!  the last 2 years have been about me - where i want to go, who i want to spend my time with & how i want to live.  it's been a solid run of the stephanie show & i am not complaining.

Christopher
We Dated Aug. 2010-Apr. 2012

my last relationship wasn't the best.  christopher & i met at a wedding & we were long distance from the get go.  it's not like we met & dated for 6 months before he moved away - it was always that way.  if i'm honest with myself, it was really good for the first month.  30 days of goodness.  the rest was a fight - a fight for weekends to see him, a fight for him to make me priority, a fight about money, a fight about his house, a fight about my job, a fight about his involvement with the freemasons.  pretty much anything was on the table.

all of my friends from college were engaged.  i felt like i was getting left behind, so i clinged to the next guy who asked me to dinner.  when it was good it was so very good but when it was bad it was really ugly.  we just weren't good for each other.  with everything in me i wanted him to be the one.

i gave it everything i had.

he said we weren't engaged because i was messy so i learned how to tidy-up my apartment.
he said he wouldn't marry a woman who couldn't cook so i learned how to cook.
he said we weren't engaged because i was high strung so i learned to keep my feelings to myself.

& he took me to pick out an engagement ring twice.  he took me to get my ring finger sized 4 times.  he knew who he wanted to officiate & who his groomsmen would be.  he did everything except actually ask the question.  so i held on & i hoped & i promised.

i became someone else to be with him & i hardly even noticed.

i'm not saying i was perfect in the matter, i definitely played my part.  i felt neglected, unappreciated & unimportant so i was ugly & i was mean.  i'm often surprised that it lasted almost 2 years.  & at the end i was shattered.  i was hardly a resemblance of the woman i was before him.  i was in pieces on the floor.

learning how to put myself back together was a valuable lesson.

the journey through reconstruction hasn't been easy.  but i've learned so much about myself, about the people around me, about life.  i've spent a plethora of time exploring these questions:

why is everyone else around me happily settled down & i'm single?  why do the men i date day dream about marrying me, but never follow through?  why have 2 of my 3 long term boyfriends taken me to pick out engagement rings but never asked?  how did i get here?

the answers are complex & strange.  it's funny - the dating choices i make haven't reflected who i am at all.  it's like some other person makes these choices & i go

"alright, cool.  yea he's cute.  do i love him?  yea i think so."

& once i drop the l-bomb i'm in for the long haul.  i don't drop the l-bomb & then walk away.  that's me; in it 110%.

now, if i wanted to do a complete man-history of my life, it would include more men than anyone has time for.  we don't really have time to talk about jose, darren, michael, thomas, jonathan, garret & all the other random dates, month-long-boyfriends & guys-i-shoulda-left-alone.  most of those relationships lasted 6 months or less, they're super trivial.  when i think about the other significant boyfriends i've had it's an automatic: jeff & joe.

i finally started to notice a pattern in all of my significant relationships: i'm a huge fan of unavailable men.

jeff was a high school student, a star on the soccer team & he owned his own business.  he was busy.  he wasn't really available.  joe was divorced & didn't want to get married again.  young me thought i could change that, change him.  he wanted someone, he didn't really want a relationship.  he wasn't available.

i can even go back through & tell you by name the guys i went after because they had girlfriends.  that when a guy would say to me:

"i don't want a relationship right now."

what i would hear is:

"come on.  try me.  i dare you."

when you look at it that way, it makes sense that the men who actually end up dating me aren't really all that available for a relationship.  i've found exactly what i've been looking for.  that's why i'm here.  this is where i wanted to be because loving someone & trusting your life & your heart to someone is a huge risk.  it's scary & it's unpredictable.

i'm single because i wanted to be single.
i'm unmarried because i wanted to be unmarried.
i'm here because this is where i wanted to be.

wow.  saying it out loud & seeing it flow from my fingers to my computer screen is so weird.  i finally said it out loud.  now i can't pretend like it didn't happen.

i'm here because this is where i wanted to be.

there's truth in those words, but i'm finally ready to make a change.

life lists.

before you even start reading this post know that in order for you to really understand my point, it may require that you take the time to read both of the blog posts i reference.  i'm not one for summarizing.  i'm not very good at it.  so...

a couple of days ago one of my single friends posted this blog post on facebook. the writer talks about people getting married right out of college as a way to hide from the world.  you can figure from the title that it's going to include a to-do list; 23 things to do instead of getting engaged right after college.  now my first thought was:

ah!  this is great!  as a single-almost-thirty-something i'm not really going to fill my time with pinterest, a jar of nutella & making out with strangers but i do get her point.  live life before committing your life to someone else....FOREVER.  take time to find out who you are, what you want & what you need before walking down the aisle.  i should be friends with this person; she gets me.

then today a few of my married friends posted this blog post on facebook.  this serves as a rebuttal to the blog post mentioned above & again its a list of 23 things you can only do when you're married.  the writer talks about marriage & the happiness that comes with it.  finding that forever partner.

they both agree that divorce rates are a problem.  the rest feels like an argument.  maybe i'm wrong, but that's what it feels like.  it feels like the battle of the lifestyles.  i don't like that.  this argument implies that there's something wrong with the opposing side & there's not.

i think both writers are just saying that we need to commit to life 100%.  if you choose single, be super single.  if you choose marriage, be super married.  you can live, explore, tattoo, and nutella single or married.  you really can if that's what you want.

it sounds to me like the first writer is is simply saying:

take time to figure out who you really are before you promise to be someone's person.  i really think that's all she's saying.  no one is saying that you have to eat nutella if you hate it.  just gain experience.  see what the world & life has to offer.

this doesn't mean find the person you want to spend forever with & make them wait 10 years so you can "live".  that's silly.  we all find out who we are & what we're made of in different ways.  if you're ready for marriage at 22, do it & if you're not, don't!

live your life.

so instead of a "instead-of-getting-engaged" or "only-when-you're-married" list i'm proposing a life list.  live your life 100%.  do what makes sense for you.  be who you want to be.  love who you want to love.  it's your life, just know what you want to get out of it.

my LIFE LIST looks like this:

1. get a dog.
2. move away.  really!  get out!  go somewhere that no one knows who you are.
3. make friends.  
4. find out who you are when you're 1000 miles from everyone you love.
5. get involved in the community around you.  join a church.  volunteer.
6. experience life.  take it all in.  do everything & do nothing.  

i live life at 110 mph.  i want to do it all, feel it all, see it all. make your own life list; married or single.  just know what you want to get out of life.

being single is great!  being married is a true blessing!  let's not argue about which is better.  let's live to the best of our ability.