Dear Husband-to-be,

I miss you.

You're my best friend, I know you are even though we've yet to meet, so I miss you. You are my lover, my friend, my partner in crime and all things silly and ridiculous. I can tell you everything and nothing at all. I accept you and understand you, as you do me. There isn't anything we can't do together because we make each other stronger.

Already I would do anything for you and that means being ready for you, even when I'm terrified I never will be. But I know you're waiting for me. Somewhere, right now, I know you are already ready for me, wondering where I am and when the hell I'm finally going to show up. It's not just a feeling anymore. I know this.

So you'll know when we finally meet, and you're real and solid and I can touch your face, and smell your skin that I wasn't holding us up on purpose. Apparently I have some shit to figure out. Still.

(Yes, I know. Don't even say it.)


Your best friend,

Amanda


P.S.
I love that I don't have to hope or worry that you'll wait. I know I'll never have to ask that of you.

Relationship with me

In one month's time I will be turning 30. I'm actually super excited about it. And I'm never excited about my birthday. (This could have something to do with the trip to Vegas I've already planned.)

this is where I get to stay for my 30th birthday :)

Seeing as I'm almost 30 and not currently in a relationship, I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be in a relationship with myself. I posted a while back about discovering this fascinating idea and I think it translates to not just the things you do for another person in a relationship, but the kind of person you are. Are you supportive, are you honest, are you giving?

I would say I'm all of these things, but sometimes the honesty part is a problem. I'm a girl some people might refer to as someone with "daddy issues." Honesty with men has always been an issue for me, especially when it comes to asking for what I want and what I need. The last time I was actually in a relationship I genuinely didn't know what those things were for me yet.

And that brings me to being in a relationship with me. It's about figuring those things out: what I want and what I need. Learning that I'm allowed to want and need things makes it easier to ask for them, and I think I'm coming to a more mature, realistic place about this in my life right now.

In the meantime, I've started making a list of the things I do for my other half when I'm in a relationship, and I'm trying to think of how I can do those things for myself. And I'm not just talking about buying myself flowers, and letting myself off the hook when I eat too much junk food over the weekend. Here are some of the major things I've thought of so far:

1. Believing in myself. Why in the world is it so easy to believe in others, but not ourselves? I always believe the best in people, but never myself. I think it's best to start out small with this one. I'm trying to simply do away with even thinking the words "that will never happen" or "that's not possible" or "I can't do that."

2. Being supportive. This kind of goes with the one above, but support and faith are two different things (though they definitely go hand in hand). The actual definition of support (for our purposes here) is to give aid or courage to, to give approval to, to give strength to; maintain. 

3. Being unconditional. Loving someone unconditionally means loving them for who they are, good or bad. You love them even when they make mistakes, and then you love them even more when they do the right thing. I think I've become a master at beating myself up whenever I'm not my own definition of "perfect." No one is perfect. And life is messy. That's where all the beauty comes from. (I mean, come on. Do you really think a painter walks away from a masterpiece without getting one speck of paint anywhere but the canvas?)

4. Small acts of love. Here's where I bring you back to the flowers. It's in the small things. And not just material things, but also hugs and kisses and compliments. I obviously can't give myself hugs, but I can ask for them when I need them, which could also mean doing something for someone else at the same time. You give a friend a hug and so you get a hug in return. Have you ever noticed how uplifting it feels to give someone a compliment? Doing something good for someone else means opening yourself up to receiving something good back. (So don't ever think that looking in the mirror and telling yourself you look fabulous is a bad idea.)

5. Trust. I suppose this is an extension of number 1, but it had to be said. Trust can take time, but we learn it from experience. To be able to trust in yourself, to know exactly what your capable of is a monumentous thing. To no longer fear that anything or anyone could ever keep you from being the person you are meant to be; no one can take that from you. That, I think in essence, is what I'm striving for in this life, in this relationship with myself: trust. No fear of living a messy, fulfilling life.

6. And last, but not least, Honesty. All I have to say is, if you can't be honest with yourself, how can you be honest with anyone else?

Can't Stop

Dear husband-to-be:

I know I can live without you, I can live without you every day.

I know I can live without you, and put life off for another day.

But I can't stop thinking about, thinking about us anymore.

-OneRepublic



No one can ever tell me it isn't possible to miss someone I've never met.

Love

On the flip side of this post from two weeks ago about the power of words, mostly that of hate, I thought I'd talk about love, which follows the theme of my last post. (A side note: I don't consider hate to be love's opposite, that would be apathy. The opposite of hate, I'm not so sure about. Thoughts?)

Love is even more powerful than hate, but I've noticed it doesn't have the same weight when it's thrown around in a flippant way. We say things like, "I love that food," or "I love that movie," or even "I love that idea." We don't really love these things. We are excited by these things, we enjoy these things, we are inspired, but for some reason we are using love as a shortcut. Why is that?

Love is at it's most powerful in it's truest forms. The love you have for your family, your best friend, your other half. I would say this kind of love can even be extended into how we feel about what we do best, whether it's a career or something that's just a hobby.

I fear using something so powerful--the only thing in this world with true meaning--and making it mundane and powerless is just as dangerous as throwing around the word hate. How can we expect to understand real love when we finally see it if we've made it something so meaningless? I think this is the root of failed marriages and relationships. The reason so many of us feel unworthy of love on a daily basis. It's like eating caviar every day. You'd enjoy it for a while, a week maybe, then it's taste would lose it's potency, it's true value.

And if we can't have love for ourselves, what do we have to give to others? Our lives are like bank accounts. You have to save up that good stuff, that love, those positive affirmations until you're life is so abundant the world gives it back you two-fold. Then there's no more saving, just giving.

I tried this love and prayer idea for something that was really bothering me this weekend and I feel like I failed at it miserably. Am I really that void of love, that desensitized that I can't even send out a small wish of love to another living being? I'm always so focused on finding my husband, on finding love for myself that I'm blind to the love I already have around me. And the energy I'm wasting worrying I'll never find him, that should be spent toward love for myself. Loving myself, so that I have love for others.

My question is, why does it feel like love is so much harder than hate? Why does that negative catch from a small spark and spread like wildfire, but love is a slower, different kind of fire? Is this just my perception? My thought is that love's slower building fire is everlasting, whereas hate's burns out quickly. I do like that idea.

I keep telling myself I need to have more love for me as a person because how will any man love me if I don't love myself? But I can't seem to wrap my head around the how. How do I love myself? Now I'm thinking it's a relationship. With myself. Something that builds and builds until you have this amazing thing that lasts and continues to build for the rest of your life. I think I like myself enough that I could grow to love myself for the rest of my life.

That is, after all, what we're here for, isn't it?

Thoughts for Friday...

A friend just posted this on Facebook and I thought I'd pass it along to you. Hope you're all having a lovely Friday! See you next week!

A letter for my future husband...

I've been rather depressed lately and feeling annoyed with being depressed over the same damn thing I've been sad about for the past few months; well, more like this whole year actually, and since I don't feel like talking about it I thought I'd share this letter I wrote last week to my future husband:

May 7, 2010

Dear Husband-to-be,

I’ve been thinking of you as of late.

Or perhaps I would prefer ‘you’ve been on my mind.’ Yes, I like that better. Because I’d like to think that somewhere out there I’m on your mind.

I got this lovely idea to write these letters to you from this girl named Meg who has a blog called ‘The Wild and Willy Ways of a Brunette Bombshell’. She writes her own letters to her future husband on her blog and she told of how she got the idea from a friend who had written letters at all the major events in her life and then presented them to her husband on their wedding day.

I, of course, immediately fell in love with the idea. But I was so blown away by Meg’s creative way of writing her letters that I was a bit intimidated and couldn’t bring myself to write my first letter for months (which would be now).

Which is silly, I know this.

Those are her words. Her way of expressing her voice. And I have my own.

This will obviously be one of your favorite things about me; my form of expressing my voice, that is – obviously.

Oh, and my superbly large vocabulary, you’ll like that too (and I’m hoping it will be infinitely larger by the time we meet).

But you’ll love everything about me, naturally.

Right?!

I know, you’ll have to be patient with my frequent…no, not the right word…my not-so-frequent (haha!) bouts of self-consciousness. You’ll know I just need a hug and some reassurance and I’ll be good to go.

I could use some of that at the moment. This letter is making me a bit self-conscious.

But like I mentioned before, I’ll be writing to you at major events of my life (or whenever I want really) and I’d say this qualifies as a major event.

I just recently realized my career I went to school for four years for is no longer my first choice of careers. And I switched to writing full-time.

It’s hard. Not as easy as it sounds.

You don’t k now it yet, but your future wife is going to be a famous author.

So why am I writing to you, you say? (Funny one babe, funny.)

No, really.

Seriously.

So I suppose I’m not so self-conscious on the subject of my inevitable fame.

But I sometimes wonder how much longer I must wait to find you and that’s when I get a bit self-conscious.

I haven’t met you yet and I already miss you.

Oh, how I long to meet you!

So please, do your best and speed things up a bit will you? Because now I’m getting far too excited thinking of the first time I’ll see your face. (I dream of you already you know, but you don’t have a face yet. Creepy, no?)

Or perhaps not creepy at all.

Love,

Your ever-impatient and eagerly-awaiting-your-arrival

Wife-to-be

I've stopped talking to my friend....

and he no longer speaks to me
I'm afraid we're not friends anymore
I'm afraid I've lost him forever
so I have tucked him away
and try with all my might
to push thoughts of him
out into nothingness
so I won't have to think of him
any longer
Because the truth is
I miss him
I miss his laugh
I miss his stories
I miss having him there day after day
The one I shared everything with
So I do not talk about him
because when I do
I am so sad it is almost painful
My heart hurts
there is a hole where he used to be
so I tuck away my memories of him
and maybe someday
I'll bring them out again
when I least expect it
and I'll smile at them
like meeting an old friend
or hearing a Cat Stevens song on the radio

(for you, Shannon)

Thinking out loud...

I've been thinking lately about what it means to truly love yourself. What does it mean to me to love myself?

I suppose when I really think about it, it means to accept myself as I am even with what I consider to be my flaws and to be happy with who I am. But I still question that it must mean something deeper than that. Nothing could possibly be that easy. Right? Does it mean something different to everyone individually, considering everyone is different, or is there some universal truth in what it means to love yourself?

I find myself falling into depression a lot lately, which is so frustrating to me because it seems that less than a year ago I was a very happy person and I wonder where that person went. A friend told me today that happiness is a decision. I know he's right, but I can't understand why in the world it's so difficult for me to make that decision. To me, it just never seems that simple: to decide to be happy, especially when I have so many other conflicting emotions bombarding me all day long. I'm someone who shows what I'm feeling and it's always written all over my face. I suppose I've never seen the point in pretending to be happy when I'm really not. Of course then, on the flip side, when I am happy, I'm really happy and everyone knows about it.

One thought I've had is that living on my own is starting to get to me. I really enjoyed it in the beginning, but I need to be spending a lot more time with friends, which I seem to have a shortage of at the moment. I find myself quite often asking what it's going to take to find a real, true friend. I've never had a friend I've known for years and years that I share everything with and can count on no matter what. Maybe I haven't been able to be that kind of friend to someone else and not the other way around....

I could sit and question all day, but the main thing is this lack of friends situation has to stop. I must learn to let others in instead of wishing others would find me and solve all my problems.

That's a whole other issue of mine I've had since I can remember (although, I've only recently come to this realization): letting people in. My secret fear has always been that no one will love me. But that just brings me back to loving myself, which reminds me at the moment of The Matrix when the Oracle tells Neo to "Know Thyself". I suppose that's where I've been stuck all along. I have to know myself before I can truly love myself....and for the record, I've never needed for anyone to tell me when I'm in love, I just know. Now, if only I could apply that same self-awareness to all the other aspects of myself and my life....

And so I ask this question to my lovely readers: what do you think it means to love yourself? And what does it mean to you to be happy?
(well, fine. That was two questions!)

Winter Blues

I've been feeling extra sad lately due to personal relationship drama with a guy who is supposed to be first, and foremost, my best friend, but who I just recently broke up with. I go through days of feeling perfectly fine about the whole thing. It was a lot of unneeded drama that I didn't need so it was a relief, in a way, to just say enough is enough. But at the same time, I'm completely heartbroken over it and I miss him in so many ways.  The day I ended it, I could only describe the way I felt as having a hole in my chest where my heart used to be. I've never had such an open relationship with a guy, but at the same time, we really didn't have much of a relationship....I could go on about it forever, but I suppose my point is I feel as though my life at the moment is one giant emotional rollercoaster that, for the most part, is usually stuck on the extreme highs and lows. 

I do feel rather proud of myself for ending something that was no good for me. I had never broken up with someone before. I'm always the one being broken up with. First time for everything I suppose. 

All that being said, I am very grateful to keep this guy as a friend. I really think that knowledge is half of what's keeping me from losing it. Breaking up usually means having to cut someone out of your life and I'm so glad that wasn't necessary in this case. I'm not sure where I'm going with this now, but I suppose I just need to be writing about this more often. It helps me focus on how I'm really feeling and handling everything instead of focusing on all the negatives that have me feeling depressed, which take pleasure in catching me unawares just as I think I'm feeling happy again. 

Well, here's to moving on.

Photo via Kristen at  Right through the very Heart of It.

Not even sure how to title this post...

I had such a terrible night last night that the terribleness has rolled over into today and I can't seem to shake it. I get depressed at times, just like everyone else, but the last few times I've felt this way it's felt much like drowning. I don't know any other way to describe it. It's got to be one of the worst feelings ever. Anyway, I'm just tired of feeling this way and the saying above is just about how I feel about the guy in my life that seems to be the cause of the drowning.