I went out to dinner with a good friend last night and she told me that since the end of her relationship six months earlier she’s now craving another relationship. I get how she feels and that’s because I used to feel exactly the same. There was a time in my life that I made it my project to find a man to love and who would also love me. I mean how hard can it be as there are plenty of single men out there?
While I was dating, no sooner had a relationship ended when in a matter of months I was back out on the dating scene again. When I think back to the person I was then, I CRINGE. I felt there was something missing in my life and I thought it was a man. How wrong I was.
After another heartbreaking end to a relationship, began an emotionally tumultuous 2019. My longing for a deep and emotionally reciprocated connection with someone just wasn’t happening for me. The realisation that perhaps I may never meet “my person” sent me into a spiral of despair and I became quite depressed. Not really the person you want to date, hey? What I learnt during those sad months was that my longing to be loved, needed to come from within first and not just from someone else. I only needed to look in the mirror. When I learnt this and took action, my craving for an intimate partner subsided.
It wasn’t easy to foster a love for myself, after all, I was now in my early 50’s and had years of bad habits to undo. I began attending to my needs, and stopped trying to catch the attention of someone else. I took 3 months off work. I started journaling and meditating (a lot). Intuitively I knew I needed to and I looked forward to it. Consequently I cried a lot before, during and sometimes hours after meditating. It was a cleansing of emotions that for so long I’d been holding onto, but that served me no more.
I began reading a lot of psychological articles and books about what it means to love yourself and how to attend to one's own emotional needs, beyond buying a new outfit or spoiling oneself with champagne and bubble baths.
Now that I had made more time for myself I started doing more of what I really enjoyed, like gardening, spending time in nature, hiking and photography. I started practising gratitude and speaking to myself with compassion and empathy. I was doing more of what filled me up emotionally. Then Covid19 hit and I discovered that despite the enforced lockdowns, I was actually quite happy spending long periods of time on my own. It sounds a bit cliche, but I did need to find myself.
To celebrate my journey and new found love I'd found for myself I made the decision to marry myself. On my 55th birthday in front of close family and a few friends, I entered into a self-marriage. It was one of the best days of my life. I felt a calm and peaceful presence from within, that lasted well into the days and weeks following my wedding.
I no longer have that feeling that there is something missing in my life, and that I'm not complete. I’m not saying I absolutely and definitely don't ever want a special man in my life, but as I said to my friend last night, I'm leaving it up to the universe now, and no longer looking, because the craving has long gone. I know now that I have all that I'll ever need and that is love and compassion for myself and an acceptance that I am enough and always will be, with or without a partner. I'm proud to call myself a sologamist. I no longer care if people think it's weird. If the universe sends me a man one day to love, then he will either be sent to test my resolve to myself or will be the real deal. If the latter, he will add to the full bucket of self love I have now and I will not need him to fill up a half empty bucket which was once me.
A craving is something we don't have enough of which we want badly. The problem with craving a significant relationship is that, just like a drug or alcohol, it's more likely we will make bad choices for ourselves.
Women are taught from a very early age to nurture and look after others. It's time we start looking after our own emotional needs. Really listening to what our heart desires and making the sometimes tough decisions to do what we understand intuitively will nurture us. For everyone that's different.
My favourite quote and which sums it all up really is:
"Love yourself so you don't rely on someone else to do it".
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