Waiting to Exhale
Posted on November 23, 2009
The last few occasions that the girls and I hung out, I asked myself, “Why…no…How is it that 90% of the women I know are single or just getting OUT of a relationship?” I’m not biased, I have pictures to support my claims, all of my friends are attractive. And I don’t keep company with slouches. All of them are gainfully employed; none of them still live at home, they cook, clean and generally have good personalities. But at the last round table we had, I heard stories of heartbreak that broke my heart. Beautiful, educated women who lived through and stood by neglectful men; men who claimed to love, want and need them, but didn’t or couldn’t emotionally, or mentally support them. They loved men, who fathered children outside of their relationships, couldn’t stay after making “love”, ate the food they cooked, wore the clothes they bought and/or washed yet never made any tangible contributions.
As the song goes, “Everybody plays the fools sometimes”. But at what point after realizing that you are the fool, do you say, “ok that’s enough!” For some of us, as I was told, “It’s not that easy, Nina” I resented that slightly, because I am older than most of my friends by a couple years. And I often tell them to learn from mistakes I have made…I’ve made a plenty. And I can see that problem before it bends the corner. Grandma loved to say, “You don’t know shit from peanut butter”. Now I do. So when it was my turn to tell my story, I didn’t have one to tell. Well I should say that I didn’t have a current one to tell. I walked that relationship path, made a u-turn and walked it again like a fool. So I know what it is to be strong, be weak and relapse. But strength and sensibility prevails the moment you eliminate FEAR and get off of that path.
What keeps most of us in unfulfilling relationships is the fear of being alone, but the irony is you are in a relationship ALONE. If we’ve invested more than 2 years, which to a woman is like 5 years, we FEAR starting over, getting to know someone new and all that entails. So we sit, we wait; we pray that he’s going to change. Hi…he’s not! And we deserve better. The man or woman for that matter should love you the way you would love you if you were them. I’m not writing to bash men, I can only speak from my experiences and I am a woman. I know there are men going through the same thing, you may be a minority but I support you too haha!
Embrace your power, confront fear and love yourself like there is no tomorrow.
Nina
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Marianne Williamson
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