getting engaged to myself

I have this beautiful ruby ring that I bought for myself last winter as a gift for surviving my fall semester of college. I stalked this ring for a couple weeks, going to the jeweler’s display at the local Saturday market. I wanted this ring but didn’t know if it would be stupid to splurge on it. Then one Saturday morning, I woke up early and got myself to the jeweler’s stand (I’d messaged her earlier that week asking her to put the ring aside). I wouldn’t consider myself a very materialistic person, but this ring is one of my favorite things I’ve ever owned. I usually wear it on my ring finger, and it serves as a little reminder that I am with myself for the long haul. After the seasons I’d been through, I looked at the ring as a visual testament to my self love journey. In marriage, you commit to someone and do all you can to support them, love them, and grow with them. I decided that I wanted to have that level of devotion for myself. The ring opened up this new mindset for me. I deserve to stick beside myself, and I needed to stop abandoning myself. I didn’t know how, but I was going to start being more intentional about the marriage between my mind and my actions. Giving myself this ring pushed me in to an engagement, where I was preparing to commit to myself in a way I hadn’t before. Even just wearing the ring allowed me to speak to myself in a kinder way. When I wear my ring I have to actively assess how I’m treating myself. If I’m having a rough day, I’m going to be patient with myself and do what I can to make things easier on my mind, body, and soul. If I would do it for someone else, why the hell wouldn’t I do it for myself? The marriage you have with yourself will be your longest, most intimate relationship. Throughout the seasons that I’ve had this ring, I have experienced pain, loss, and every emotion under the sun. But here I am, still with myself. 

As much as I love this ring, sometimes it gives me so much anxiety! If I take it off to wash my hands and leave it somewhere my heart beats a little faster until I remember where I put it. Sometimes the fear of losing the ring outweighs my desire to even wear it. It makes me think of how often the fear of making mistakes and leaving things behind stops me from embracing life in a loving way. It also reminds me of how often I hold on to things that cause me anxiety just because they hold sentimental value to me (including people). As much as I enjoy having the ring, I now can honor my marriage without it. Sometimes we need a visual representation of the things we keep in our hearts and minds. I knew I wanted to feel cherished, understood, and supported. And the beautiful lesson that the ring taught me is that I always have access to that within myself. Each day when I wake up, I get to be there for myself. It is my greatest honor and highest responsibility, taking good care of myself. 

Making my mind a safe space has been crucial. If you had a partner or friend or family member who was going through a tough time, would you really tell them to get over it or suck it up? Or abandon them in their moment of need and vulnerability? I wouldn’t. So I started changing the way I spoke to myself when I was going through difficult things. I stopped limiting how much I could cry, and I stopped holding shame for the moments when I did. I started challenging my inner narrative (thank God for my therapist for teaching me how to do this in the most loving yet firm way possible. She was literally like “Are these narratives you’re telling yourself really true or even fair to you?” AND IT CHANGED MY LIFE). I started letting myself challenge my anger and my pain and the way it showed up in my life and relationships. Asking myself, “What really hurts about this? What belief are you carrying that’s stopping you from making the most loving solution for yourself? What is this teaching you?”. I stopped seeing difficult situations as punishments, but instead catalysts for understanding and compassion that I could extend to others through a refined sense of empathy. I began to trust that I could let go of control, that I could make my own boundaries and only allow people in my life who honored them and let those who didn’t act how they wanted, but far away from me. This helped me to be more intentional about respecting and learning the boundaries of others, because I know that being a good friend and a good neighbor means showing up for others in a way that makes them feel supported and cherished, and I know how good it feels to do that for myself. I grew to understand the ways I’d been sabotaging myself, and began taking steps to embrace the life I deserved. My relationship with myself is completely my responsibility, and I choose to be an active participant in pouring in to it. 

I’ve noticed within myself that I tend to over explain, which is an indirect tactic to seek validation about my thoughts and ideas from others. Being a friend to myself has meant taking small risks to stop doing this. I am beginning to have more trust in myself, as I would in anyone I love and respect. I didn’t like the fact that I felt confused so often, and was relying on people who sometimes didn’t have my best interest at heart to tell me how I should perceive things. I knew my morals and values, I tried my best, I was doing what I could to be kind to myself and others. Yet, I still felt that I came up short. I didn’t know what to do when people didn’t like me or talked about me. I didn’t know how to handle different manifestations of rejection. I took it personally when people would mistreat me or didn’t love me the way I wanted to be loved. But then, I took a step back. I began to observe that I was actually attaching my worth to people and things that were not consistent or good hearted, and that I was behaving in a way that aligned with the false belief that life would always be dysfunctional, and that I would never reach a point where I felt that I was enough, and so I was acting accordingly. When I realized that I had been operating with that narrative, I completely broke down. And through this breakdown, I was able to start from scratch and start building the woman I was meant to be. But it wasn’t easy or pretty or fun. In fact, it was probably the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. Everyday I would fall apart, wondering why I felt so alone and lost. It honestly felt like I was living my life and then one day someone picked me up and dropped me in to an alternate universe where everything was fucked up. I had suddenly lost friends that I thought I’d never lose, I was behaving in ways that I’d never behaved before out of anger and hopelessness. I was staying in bed, trying to piece together who I was, and there was no one there to help me figure it out. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I needed all of it. I’ve written about it before, but over the summer my life changed drastically. No one will ever know the full extent to what I experienced through that brutal season of growth, but I witnessed it in myself. I had to be on my own to learn to validate my own feelings and experiences. I had to learn not to abandon myself, and I learned that loving yourself is not always daisies and roses. But most importantly, I learned that you have to love yourself through absolutely everything. True and good change does not come through hating yourself. Your soul operates through love, and that is why it hurts so much when people (including yourself) are unloving towards you. When you have a relationship with anyone, you don’t just embrace the good parts of them, you embrace all of them. Same. Goes. For. You. You don’t get to reward the best parts of yourself and leave the broken parts to rot. You deserve more than that. You deserve to mend your wounds and to be loved all the way through. 

So, I say all of this to say that there is purpose in being on your own. There is a reason why we come in to the world by ourselves and why we leave the world alone. This body is a vessel for growth, the fabric of the universe is love. Our souls marry our bodies, and our hearts officiate it. Honor yourself, this relationship doesn’t end. Be kind to yourself, the world is not always the most loving place, yet you are an infinite source of love and goodness. That is your power, that is your task. To love and be loved. Start with yourself. 

Love you all, take good care.