Things I Learned While Not Dating You (or Meeting Your Own 'Relationship Goals')

Relationships and empowerment are two things that I definitely have thought a lot about in the last year and a half, so here are some things I've been pouring over lately.

Societal expectations have a way of making us feel insufficient on a variety of levels, whether it be our less than flawless skin, our overweight body, or how many likes we get on our social media accounts. But in all honesty, I think that societal and gender expectations of dating, relationships, and marriage affect almost every single one of us. Everyone is striving for that perfect relationship that they (and their instagram followers) can feel good about. I do recognize that this makes it sounds like a bunch of narcissists, but I also think that it is important to think about how it feels to have someone legitimize your relationship. When you post something and people respond in a positive manner, it makes you feel good; the same goes for negative feedback and feeling bad. However, we need to break away from having the approval of others and start doing things that we feel passionately about instead of what everyone else expects us to be doing. What if we just did things because we ourselves thought was cool instead of doing something we think others think is cool? I believe that through engaging in the things we feel most passionately about, our true selves show through, selves that are strong and grounded in their beliefs and who do not need the approval of others to feel worthy.

Although we do not like to admit it, we really are concerned about what others think about us. The good news? Solid peers will support you no matter what, as will good friends, regardless of if what you're doing is cool and/or likable. Each one of us is unique with their own set of fingerprints, genes, and lifestyles--we've gotta stop trying to live someone else's life (which we've decided is better than ours) and own our experience and story. Life is too short to try and live like anyone but yourself.

In the realm of relationships, I think that sometimes we feel the need to legitimize to other people that our relationship is good. If you have to convince other people of its worth, it might be worth reframing how you think about your relationship. Instead of striving to make our relationships worthy of the tag 'relationship goals', we should be intentional about our own personal beliefs about relationships. As individuals, we know what we expect out of a relationship and chances are, we don't all believe the same things about what constitutes a good relationship. We all have our own ideas of 'relationship goals', so we should not have to impose our version of those goals on anyone else. And here's the kicker--that's perfectly okay. If we all believed the same things about relationships, everything would be a lot more complicated. That being said, let's stop comparing ourselves and our significant others to other couples and be empowered by the unique love and belonging we share with one another. Just because my relationship does not look like yours does not mean that it is insufficient or bad. But when we compare our current status to that of another couples, it often leaves us feeling unsatisfied and unworthy. Like if I was as cool or beautiful or 'insert word here' as this other couple, my significant other would treat me in this way. We have got to stop comparing our worth to how other people are doing life. If you are single, celebrate being single and find out what it means to be single. If you are in a relationship, celebrate that and find out what it means to be in a relationship. Do not let other people's ideas of what your life should be affect what you choose it to be. Even when the church ladies or awkward family members are getting you down and asking why you are not married off yet, kindly remind them that you are just working on more important things right now, because for some of us, being in that kind of situation is just not ideal for the current situation. Just because you are in one boat or the other does not mean that you are ahead, behind, worthy, or unworthy, it just means you are in a different part of your life than another person.

Personally, I used to find myself getting bogged down about my lack of relationship or how I was being treated. I think what I realized is that there is you have two courses of action when this realization comes upon you:

1) figure out where those feelings of insecurity are stemming from and address them head on,
2) ignore the problem, or
3) empower yourself to be with the way things are

I'm sure we can each say we have chosen one of the three examples or any other number of responses at one time or another in our lives. The important thing is where you end up and how you let your past decisions affect your future ones. I used to be overcome with feelings of intense shame and insufficiency whenever someone I knew got engaged. After realizing that about myself, I chose to address my issues head on and empower myself (combining #1 and #3 was successful for me!). Although my knee jerk reaction to seeing Facebook engagements is still nothing short of feeling shame wash over me, I will say that the feeling has decreased significantly. Somehow, I reframed my perspective and have just decided to be happy in my current situation and it is the most beautiful thing. I have chosen to be with the way things are. And let me just say, the way things are for me is pretty good right now. Even though things do not always go my way, I have chosen to be unfailingly happy and thankful for the current situation and have been intentionally working to see the positives in each circumstance instead of all of the ways in which life tries to rule us with the idea of scarcity. Sometimes it may feel like there are not enough hours in the day (which is true), but remember that we all have the same amount of hours in a day as Beyonce. So here's to a wonderful, eye-opening, life-changing six months of being single and content instead of restless and waiting for my 'moment'. Instead of waiting for my moment, I am creating it, each and every day, with the help of all of you.

An Open Letter to All of My Ex-Boyfriends

KITTENS.

I've been feeling just about 95% Beyonce since school started and let me just say, it's fantastic. So with that being said, ladies (and gents too, we ain't gotta gender this), empower yoselves.

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Dear Ex-Boyfriends,

I shall begin this letter by calling you each out by name.....................................................PSYCH!

If any of you are currently reading this, omg WHAT that's so funny. But then again, I can't say I'm surprised. We all know that as exes we like to low key keep up with what our former significant others are doing now.

But anyways, I want to start off by saying you were pretty good. I was pretty good too. We were both pretty good together, just not great, but that's okay. The good thing about relationships are that even though you start in one place, you usually end in a completely different one. It's almost always a place where we never thought we'd be, but somehow are finding ourselves in.

To be wholeheartedly honest, some of you got away with things you shouldn't have (you all know who I'm talking about). I'm sure I got away with things too, but if there's one thing I've learned from dating all of you, it's that I should stand up more for who I am and how I should be treated (not that any of you were super jerks, but let's be honest). Being a senior in college has really showed me that it's all about trust and courage, relationship or not. But either way, thanks for reminding me that I deserve the world, past boyfriends; that's what everyone deserves. And in all fairness to myself, I'm over you now, thanks for lots of 90's Destiny's Child and TLC. I don't even have to ask why you're acting shady and not calling me baby, I can just leave it to my spotify player.

Another thing that never fails to make me laugh out loud is seeing pictures of you on the internet or passing you on the street. It's just like waving to my former self and remembering where I'm at now--and sometimes that warrants an LOL. Whenever I see you, I almost reference back to who I was when we were together and then realize that I'm my current self and it's a long time gone. Somehow this brings me peace--like we both enjoyed our time together (or at least I did) and now we're off doing different things and maybe enjoying our time with someone else (or more honestly, CATS). But either way, I just hope that ya'll are doin' okay. Like we shared some memories, so based solely on our shared humanity, I hope you're loving life. I'd hope that you'd wish the same for me, but I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't. It's cool either way, cos just like Beyonce says in 7/11, 'I know you care', you can just go on pretending that you don't.

I want you to know that even if things got messed up between us, each of you taught be some valuable lessons. I can safely say that I understand the power of communication, why it's important to know what you want in a relationship, and how to be a real individual while also being with someone else. I used to be so good at putting my self worth into our relationships, but I wish you would've made sure I didn't do that. My current self wishes she could tell my past self that there's more to life than you. There's more to life than all of us and that's both beautiful and amazing sad, all at once.

The last thing I've realized is that I have the tools to be happy and sorry to say it, but I don't need you to be happy. If anything, you should be an added happiness onto my already happy, fully-functioning, self-sufficient life. It feels good to know that I have the power to ask for what I need and deserve. I also feel like Beyonce about 95% of the time since senior year has started, so make no mistakes that I am empowered and will stand up for myself *insert peace sign emoji here*

Peace and blessings,
Kaitlin