"Love when you are ready, not when you're lonely"

When I saw the quote that I used for the title of this blog, "love when you are ready, not when you're lonely," a light bulb went off in my head.  I was scrolling through pinterest (solid Saturday night of a single girl) & the quote just hit me like a ton of bricks.  The two phrases separately could have had enough of an impact, but together. Whoa.

Let's start with the second part of this quote....."not when you're lonely."  I realized that a lot of people, me included, jump into relationships that don't feel right because of loneliness.  It's not a hard thing to do.  Being in a relationship provides security; it's a comforting feeling to have someone to share your life with: the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

However, being lonely is not the right reason to jump into something.  We are all in love with being in love. I can fully admit to that.  I want it SO BAD--so bad that sometimes I end up forcing myself to make a relationship work with someone who is not right for me at all.  When I say sometimes, I am referring to this one time......aka my most recent ex boyfriend.  The last post that I wrote was about him, and I swore that I was done.  That was in June.  It's now September 3, and we just cut things off completely a week ago. 

I realized why I kept going back to him....comfort & loneliness were at the top of the list. 

 ...............BUT it turns out, I was more lonely when we were communicating than I was when I was by myself.  Deep down, I knew it wasn't going to work, so I felt even more empty trying to force something instead of just being happy with my life minus a significant other. 

This really ties into my favorite part of the quote "love when you're ready...."

My friend "E" and I had a heart to heart today while taking a walk about how our 20s are a time of transition.  We have friends settling down, getting married, moving to different cities, and our friendships and things we have become comfortable with our entire lives have shifted.  Yes, relationships are a very important part of life, but the most important relationship you can have is with yourself.  I can look at facebook all day long and get depressed about high school aquaintances that are getting engaged (the new "look who just got engaged side bar doesn't help that.....cool Mark Zuckenberg)  BUT in the end I need to be happy with my life, myself, and the choices that I have made and continue to make in order for me to be happy. 

At the end of the day, that's how you know you are ready for love. .....when you are okay, actually more than okay being by yourself.  When you are happy with your choices, your friendships, your education, your career, when you can look in the mirror, and be confident about who you are as a human being, when you are confident that you want to share your life with someone--someone you genuinely want there because they make you a better person, not because they make it easier to sleep at night, that's when you know you are ready for love.....
 

Working on being ready,

C