I Am Whole…By Myself

It is definately not my place to speak on the decisions that others make in their lives but I am allowed to speak about mine. I refuse to walk around here like there is something wrong with me because I’m some months shy of my 25th birthday and I am nowhere close to married. So what? You want me to take the road to desperation and trap a man in order to ensure that he marries me? You want me to hop from man to man hoping that the next one is ready to put a ring on my finger within months of meeting me? What exactly do you want me to do at this point in my life except what I am doing right now? I am reveling in the fact that I am a whole woman, regardless of whether or not I am anybody’s wife. Of course I’m going to get married and of course I’m going to be a wife and mother but I’ll be da**ed if I rush into anything with anyone when either one of us is not ready to take on the responsibilities of a married life. God has His reasons for making me who I am at each stage in my life. From last year to this year alone I have gained a wealth of knowledge and understanding about what it means to be a woman and what it means to be in a committed, loving relationship. Who’s to say that God does not have a few other things to teach me before I am ready to become Mrs. Anybody? As many sideways glances I may have given to people who seemed to get together and get married within a one-year period, I still have to commend them for doing it the right way. For not skipping steps in-between. For taking the time to get to know each other and letting things develop as they should. I can’t help it that I am whole by myself. I know it has driven a lot of men in my past crazy to think that I don’t need them, but I didn’t. Even at this point in my life, I can’t say I need any man. I want him and I love him, but do I need him? That is hard to say. Unless God created him to fulfill a specific need in my life that no other person can meet, I can’t say that with any level of certainty. Even now, I find myself secluding myself from my loved ones because I don’t want anyone to get the impression that I can’t live without them. When people, even people I love, show signs of pulling away from me, I pull away too. There is still a huge part of me that needs to know that I can be whole by myself. That my best friends, cousins or my boyfriend do not make or break me. I have had too many instances in my past where my significant other or my closest friends have broken me and made me feel like my life was incomplete without them. As much as I love loving others, I can’t have them dictate my self-worth or self-esteem. I am whole by myself and I refuse to apologize for that.