Being Comfortable in My Own Skin

Those who know me know I’ve never really been on my own.  I come from a large family, having five brothers which I helped raise, to starting my own family right out of high school.  I spent the next two and a half decades juggling family, college, church, and career.  Those were very important times in my life, and the experience of them shaped so many of my thoughts, values, likes, and dislikes. It completely dictated what I did and didn’t do.

I’m in a new time in my life, a single time, and most often an alone time.  I never had alone time before and it takes some getting used to – because now I have no distractions to keep me from focusing on my own needs, discovering my own wants, and exploring my own desires.  I’ve been a Martha for so long, I quite honestly don’t know how to be a good Mary. I am learning, though, and I have to admit, I really like what I’m discovering.  I’m finding out it’s not so bad being comfortable in my own skin.

So much has changed in my life over the last couple of years, and one of those things have been my groups of friends. I’ve learned that not everybody who told me they love me really did.  They loved the “idea” of loving me, but the execution wasn’t so simple. It’s not their fault either, I didn’t make it easy to love me, and I still don’t.  For many years, I didn’t love myself and no matter how much anyone else loved me, it didn’t help.  I really didn’t know what love was, not real love. I still don’t – really, other than the love I’ve developed for myself, my children, my God, and a few very special friends.

Friends are important.  I’m beginning to think they’re much more important than a lover, but let’s wait until I get a lover and see if my mind changes on that aspect.  Being able to share myself and things in common with people I care about is very important.  I’m a social being.  I’m not meant to be alone and isolated, none of us are.  We need each interaction, we need stimulation, and we need human contact.  But, I’m learning to appreciate solitude, being comfortable in doing things alone, because other people are not going to always be there.  People come and go in my life, and no matter how much I plan on their presence being there, nothing is guaranteed.  I’ve spent too much of my life ‘waiting’ on someone else and allowed too many of my dreams to slip through my fingers because I couldn’t get someone else to be with me, help me, or go with me.  No more. 

If I don’t have anyone to go with me to a place I desire to go, or to do something I desire to do, I’m okay being on my own. The times I have been alone felt a little strange at first, but I’ve come to enjoy them.  Yesterday, I spent the whole day alone - and I loved every minute of it.  It was nice that I didn’t need anyone else to have a good time.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to become a hermit and isolate myself from humanity because I’ve learned I don’t need anyone.  It’s just nice to know I’m enough company for myself.  I still have wants and desires, and one of those desires is to share my life with someone special, to have a great romance, to be somebody’s bright spot, to have lots of wonderful, loving friends, and to live a life full of adventure.  Friends may come and go, a prince may never arrive on his white stallion and sweep me off my feet, or I may not accomplish everything I’ve set my mind to do – but at least it won’t be because I waited on someone else.  I’m not waiting on anyone anymore, except myself.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray