The night I met my most recent ex-boyfriend I said some atrocious things, like where I did and did not shave, that I did not adhere to misogynist cultural norms, and how I wouldn’t mind having a sugar daddy if I didn’t have to perform sexual favors for him.
(What can I say, he must have found me at least a little charming. And, in my defense, I was out with a lady friend - a date on which he was the third wheel, not me.)
But I have had a realization in hindsight, as so many realizations are only realized after the fact (which is to say, too late to matter), that I was on a the high end of an overcorrection, a phase where I took nothing slightly resembling BS from anyone, that I was deep into an I’m-a-strong-independent-woman-and-don’t-need-no-man period, and now I wish I’d dialed it back just a little bit so I could look back and think to myself, “Ah, I was the least bit rational; I’m so proud.”
Alas, no, rationality is not something I can reminisce about or claim I ever possessed.
This, this overcorrection, is the reason I went from taking so much wishy-washy will-he-won’t-he-come-back and pining for poor treatment and half-love to running away, sometimes literally, from nice guys who just wanted to take me out for coffee or dinner or for a walk or something. If only there had been reason, or at least a little balance, perhaps things in my most recent romantic endeavors would have turned out differently, or at least amicably.
Perhaps I could have said, “yes, I’ll have a drink with you and we can have a conversation; I might say something weird, but oh well!” I could have said, “sure, I like coffee, wanna buy me one.” Instead it was like, “no, you have a penis, stay the hell away from me, you’re just like all the rest of the other sordid lowlifes and I want nothing to do with you forever and ever.”
I could have been like, “yes, we kissed, but let’s not overthink it,” instead of putting my phone on airplane mode for an entire day and wandering aimlessly around a park lamenting, “woe is me, what have I DONE?” I could have said, “hey, we’ve seen each other four days in a row, and maybe I need some space now,” instead of having a full-blown crying meltdown and not speaking to him for three days.
Cleary I had and have some things to work through.
And that was just the very beginning of that story that now appears to be over. I see now over the weeks and months the vast number of things I could have done differently. But the pendulum swings, and, up till now, I’ve found myself just along for the ride.
Now… now I’d say it’s high time I just took a step off the ride and watched it swing for someone else for a little bit. Until I figure out if this thing has an on/off switch or speedometer or something.
When you’re traveling solo across the country and staying on farms with really just animals for company, your mind has a tendency to rebel against itself (or at least mine does). You want to doll yourself up and go out and be all, “I’m still clever and okay-looking even though I’ve been dumped, right? You, random man, validate me.”
You want a massage, a bath, a pedicure, a haircut. You want a pint – nay, a tub! – of ice cream. You want a whole stuffed-crust pizza to yourself. You want an endless supply of rom-coms that will restore the faith in your delusional little girl mind that meet-cutes exist IRL and you will someday very soon find yours.
Did you ever hear about that experiment with the kids and the marshmallows? The kids that were willing to wait to devour their treats got a second marshmallow in addition to the first one. Evidently this patience and willingness to wait for good things was very indicative of later-life success. I see now that I’ve always been among the group of kids who eats the marshmallow as soon as it is within reach (even though I don’t even eat marshmallows at all now, because, you know, gelatin).
All this massive rambling is to say, maybe it’s a beautiful thing to think that we can grow and change and become more than whoever it was we were born as. And now is as good an opportunity as any to take the time to realize that maybe it’s better to wait for the best, for the bigger reward, instead of settling for whatever just comes along.
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