it happened again last night. the validation and self love that comes from spending time with girlfriends. ladies i love, who make it clearly evident that they love me as well.
the result? the mnse. major not sucking effect.
it's fucking critical to my life. it brings (happy) tears to my eyes. it makes me want to hug everyone i see (more than usual). it makes me gush to my boyfriend. and it makes me so happy to be me.
because i am. so happy. to be me. so thankful for where i have landed in this life, and for whose lives in which i am intertwined.
i wake up in the morning and i am content. fucking sleepy? yes. but glad to wake up as amy.
and that's what i want to chat about today. contentment - even joy - in being who you are. you may think this is starting to sound like lame gush-nastiness. you're wrong. this is important.
so let's think about this.
i have, and have had, a tendency to get jealous of others. when i was younger, i was jealous of friends and acquaintances whose parents were less strict. whose families seemed more "together" and carefree.
i would have traded my life with theirs in an instant.
as i got older, i got jealous of more material things. surely not a sign of increasing maturity, but true nonetheless. i was jealous of nice cars. jealous of rockin' wardrobes that i couldn't have afforded. jealous of those girls who seemed to have guys all figured out, and used that to their advantage.
i would have, absolutely, traded my life with theirs.
when i was single, i was painfully jealous of any and everyone i saw in relationships. i envied them. i wanted that. and i convinced myself that, until i found that same sort of relationship, i would be incomplete and a lesser person.
i made myself believe it. i was only hurting myself. and i wished i were someone else.
as i entered into the life of a monogamous lady-in-love, i still fell into significant periods of jealousy. jealous of my married friends. jealous of folks whose jobs seemed cooler or career appeared leagues ahead of where i was.
and at this point, i was happy. happier than i had been previously, at least. but i still had my priorities out of whack. something was missing, i still felt a little hole. rather than focusing on everything i had - and have - i was focusing on what i didn't. comparing myself to others.
it wasn't because my boyfriend wasn't fulfilling me. wasn't doing everything an effing fabulous boyfriend ought to do (he did). i wasn't loving myself enough. i wasn't content with who "amy" was. my focus was way off.
what i didn't realize at the time (one of the many things, actually) is this: from the outside in, i'm sure other people probably thought i had it all. compared themselves to me and were jealous. would have traded places with me in an instant.
and that's sad.
i don't how exactly it happened, and it happened slowly, but i have corrected the vision i hold of myself.
do i still feel pangs of jealousy? hell yeah. but i wouldn't trade my life for anything. i am so thankful to be me. i am so happy being me. i love and feel loved by the people in my life not because i need them in my life (although sometimes it feels that way), but because i want them in my life. they enhance something that is already good.
and i think that's the bottom line. friends, lovers, family - they all make you infinitely more happy when you don't rely on them for your happiness, but are able to enjoy them to only increase the joy that exists in your life. and you can make them, in turn, infinitely more happy when they also find joy in being themselves, and allow your relationship to only enhance the joy they already have in their lives.
i think it's why my relationship with my boyfriend works so well, especially now. i think it's why my relationships with my friends provide me with SO MUCH joy, now more than ever. they make me glow.
i think we have all had those periods in our lives when things seem dark. when we feel a hole, and search for anything to fill it, to fix it, to distract us for a while.
while relationships certainly help for support, keeping us from falling in headfirst, they're never going to fill it. it's something that, hard as it is, we have to fill ourselves. we have to find our own happiness in who we are. become someone we are proud and happy to be.
it precedes experiencing the true greatness of romantic relationships. filling the hole. loving ourselves. it precedes the greatest high point in friendships. it precedes being able to wake up with a sense of contentment and peace.
but it's do-able. i did it. and while i know i certainly didn't do it alone, at the end of the day i was the only one responsible for making myself happy. support and acceptance are critical. invaluable and helpful. but no one can rely on someone else to make them happy with who, at their deepest core, they are.
i wasn't happy. now i'm glowing. i am so thankful to the people in my life who have ridden the waves with me, and with whom i can now share the incredible highs of friendship and love.
i am so happy to be me. are you happy to be you?
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