Realizations about Love: A True Christmas Miracle

 So I was watching The Merry Gentleman, earlier this week, and I had an epiphany. 

I know I have talked, often, in this blog about being in love and how I am pretty sure that it has never truly happened to me. Since my last blog, I have become even more convinced of that. I have also accepted that - at least for now - it will remain that way. And I am okay with that. 

Writing about things has always been part of my process of figuring things out and trying to understand them. My mind is always so chaotic. Writing things down gets them out of my head and allows me to truly see them and analyze them. In a lot of ways, this blog is my version of Dumbledore's Pensieve. 

I have come to the realization that one of the reasons I was always so reluctant to watch romance movies was because they are a constant reminder of what I have never had. There are very few romance movies that make my top 20 of favorite movies, much less my top 10. And they’re not even considered romances. What little romance is in them is very much B storylines. I tend to favor action and thriller and adventure movies. And everything with Dylan O’Brien 🤷🏻‍♀️

But, this year, during my Christmas movie watch - it has been dawning on me over these last 20 days, that they are all love stories. And while watching them has brought me some melancholy about not having what I am watching, I have also found myself enjoying the movies in a way I never have before. 

The Merry Gentleman capped that for me. Watching Ashley (Britt Robertson) and Luke (Chad Michael Murray) dance that first dance together, something clicked in me. 

The truth is that I love Love. I love all the romance and the cheesy words and the lingering looks. I love the excitement and the sweetness of it all. I even love most of the stereotypical tropes that come with romance stories. 

Except the enemies to lovers trope. I despise that one! 

But I grew up only ever really seeing love on tv and in the movies. So, I think I made the determination, at a young age, that I was going to find that for myself. 

Three things wrong with that.

 First, I was basing what I knew about romantic love and 'happily ever after' solely on what I had seen on the screen. Second, the very few times I got close to feeling anything remotely like it, I sabotaged the relationship and then ran. And Third, the relationships I did choose to stay in were so very bad. The worst part about that is that I knew they were bad. I saw all the red flags and chose to ignore them.

Maybe I never believed that I deserved the real thing. Maybe it was a form of punishment because I believed all the bad things about myself that had been said to me over the years. If you know anything about me, or have read any of my previous blogs, you'll understand a little bit of why that is. I have been damaged for a very long time. And despite all the therapy and medications I have been through over the years, I never allowed myself to truly heal or to know myself or to love myself.  

Until these last few years. 

As many of you know, the healing started - weirdly - with a mental breakdown I had at the beginning of 2021. A lot of things contributed to this and I have told this story. If you want to check it out, you can do so here https://mystikceleste.blogspot.com/2024/03/social-anxiety-and-closure-that-may.html 

In the last, wow, almost 4 years (is that right??!?!) - I have done so much healing and discovering who I am and truly accepting everything about who and what I am. Not only that, I finally learned how to tell a real friend from someone that was just using me. Well, not tell, because I always could. But I stopped pretending that being used was normal and just something that was meant to happen to me. I finally learned that I do not deserve that. I deserve so much better. 

And I have a very small and amazing group of friends. Unfortunately, I don't get to see them as they all have lives. But we do message each other and I know that they are there for me when I need them. Hell, without them, I would not be sitting here writing this right now. 

As for romantic love, though I know it is not in the cards for me, right now - I am no longer adamantly convinced that it never will be. 

If it's not, that's okay. How ironic would that be for someone with such a romantic soul to be destined to spend their life single. 

But, if it is something that is meant for me, that thought does excite me. And I do have expectations and standards of what I am actually looking for, now. 

I think reaching these conclusions is excellent progress. Just a few years ago, I was dead set on never dating again and firmly believed that love was not for me. And while my outlook on that has changed, I have not yet reached a point where I am actually ready to go looking for it.

 Honestly, I am really enjoying the peace of being single. I don't have to worry about someone else's wants or needs or feelings. Every decision that I make is mine and mine alone. I have never had that before. It's liberating and exhilarating. Maybe that sounds a bit selfish, but I have never had the chance to be selfish - I have never had a life where I only have to think of myself. I like it. 

Then there is the moving thing. I am still doing that. I am still determined to make it as a writer and to move somewhere that I feel more at home. The original plan should have seen me out of here over a year ago. 

But losing Ma changed the plan dramatically. Turns out that life, and grief, don't work on anyone's time table. In a weird way, I think it has been good for me to still be here. It definitely helped me deal with the grief and the blame I was placing on myself. It has helped with the healing and learning about myself, as well.

These 4 years have been a wild ride. One that I am sure is not yet over. And it would not be good to start dating while I am still learning about myself. It also would not be fair to start dating when I plan to leave Ohio. 

I have given myself a new 2 year timeframe on that one. 

But I am believing more and more, that there is someone out there for me - a person that will be exactly what I need and I will be exactly what they need. And I am absolutely sure that that person is not here. They might be in NYC. They might be in LA. But they are not in Ohio. 

If they are out there, I am looking forward to meeting them and finally learning what this being in love thing is all about.