A is for Acceptance
It’s funny how so many people seemingly have all the right answers when it comes to love and relationships. “Just wait, you’ll see” they say, or, “It’s going to happen when you stop looking,” or, “It can happen really fast.” The list of cliché things people say goes on and on. Here is what I know: No one really knows. All we have is our lived experiences; what we think will happen because of stories, because of patterns, etc. Are they wrong? No, not necessarily. Are they right? Well, again, no, not necessarily, either. Here’s the thing, no one knows.
I have come to a place lately where I finally feel I have the only answer I need: Acceptance. It is the only answer I have found that gives me any comfort whatsoever—in life, in relationships—acceptance of what has happened, and that there is nothing we can do to change it. The promotion or raise we didn’t get; the invitation we were expecting which never comes; the call or text you were hoping he would make, but you never receive; the man you fall in love with, who will never love you back. Acceptance. Even when it breaks your heart, accepting that this is the hand life has dealt you in this moment. I have struggled with this simple word for so long, but particularly these past three years. So many times I wanted something so badly that I tried to force it when it just wouldn’t happen. It only ended up causing me more hurt and heartache in the end. Recently in dating I have struggled with this. It can be particularly hard when we never get to know the “why” when something ends. In an age where it’s just easier to cease communication entirely, answers are increasingly harder to come by.
I recently found the answer I was looking for with someone coming back into my life, but not how I expected him to. I love this man, I do. But he cannot give me the relationship I want and long for. It was so hard for me, the cognitive dissonance I felt with him coming back, and these feelings still being present, yet without the outcome I would have hoped for and wanted. In the family and conservative community I grew up in, conventional relationships are the only kind of relationships that are acknowledged and acceptable. In my life now, I feel such a strong urge to conceal, to hide, because the relationships that I have now are so far from that “perfect model” that I was raised with. And yet, it is where I am today. They have not been relationships devoid of anything I have found in a conventional one, and yet I have known, inherently, that these relationships, should they come to light, would be judged more harshly because they aren’t conventional. Which is why I have, for the most part, stayed mum about them. I live within these lines not necessarily by choice, but because it is where life has taken me. I still long for the day that I meet someone who feels the same way that I do, who wants the same or similar things that I do, and who is ready for something real...but until I meet him, I am still living, and I am still loving. I do not regret any of my attempts to find love, nor the men I have fallen in love with. I feel peace about all of it in the simple embrace of the word, “acceptance,” in my life. No, this isn’t how I saw this going, nor what I would have originally chosen or wanted, but it’s what has happened and I cannot go back and change it, even if I wanted to.
I choose this life, I choose to love, and I choose to continue to have hope. I am creating a life I love every day, and loving me more and more as I get stronger and learn more in this process.
I feel that I can finally talk about dating, or rather, my attempts to try to, here, and that alone has been hard for me to do. Because I do not have it all figured out. Because I am imperfect; I make mistakes; and because I don’t live my life in a way that I feel many will understand or accept. I suppose you can say I’m finally ready to own it, despite all of that. I am doing this the way I see best, and I alone am the one who has to live with those decisions, not anyone else. I choose this life, I choose to love, and I choose to continue to have hope. I am creating a life I love every day, and loving me more and more as I get stronger and learn more in this process.
I may not be quite ready to write a full blown post about dating yet (baby steps here), but I am glad that I am ready to own this life. I am ready to accept that I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know what happens from here, but I am ready to create and live my best life possible, with or without a significant other in my life. The waiting period is over. There cannot be any more “someday,” or “next year,” or “in five years,” etc. There is only now. And I’m so ready.
Love always,
Sabrina Michele