L-O,L-O,L-O,L-O-V-E....I'm talkin' bout love.

I've gone back and forth with myself all week as to whether or not I should tackle the topic at hand again. I kind of feel like it's a "been there, done that" kind of thing but it's been on my mind a lot. And it also seems to be on the minds of quite few of my fellow female bloggers (most of whom are much better than me at this sort of thing).

What has struck me the most after reading these posts was the common topic or theme, "What is wrong with me?". Believe me, I've been there myself and am constantly battling with myself about how I feel about myself. I find myself constantly comparing my friends who have found "their one" and are falling in love, starting families, doing all that stuff we are told as girls we should aspire to have and then made to feel if we don't have it, we're broken or something is wrong with us or we must be unlovable. But worst of all, if we really feel like we are o.k. with our singleness and try to explain why we're o.k. with it, then that's the worst thing of all because we've either given up on ourselves or we're just over compensating and making excuses for why we don't have any of the above.

Huh?!

How does not having any of that mean there is something wrong with us? How does not having any of that mean we are broke or damaged goods? Why does not having any of that require that we single ladies change who we are or compromise what we want for this weird societal notion of what will make us "happy"?

I know I tend to come off as a little extreme in the whole "I don't need a man to......." area of things. But that's because I don't. I don't need a man to make me feel complete or whole or make me happy. That does not mean, however that it isn't a struggle everyday to not get down on myself for being "alone". It's a struggle everyday to not want to kill the part of me that wants to be with someone, to love someone and to have them love me back. It's a struggle everyday to not feel sorry for myself that I am alone and that I'm pretty good at falling for the guys who for whatever reason will never be available to get to know me (don't think I don't recognize that one of J's greatest appeals is that he lives/works in DC). Yes, I would love to meet someone, fall in love, have kids (not, omitting marriage wasn't a typo), live happily ever after. But none of that is going to really make me happy.

It's a completely cliche thing to say before someone can love you, you need to love yourself. I know. I've heard it time and time again and hearing it makes me want to puke. But the worst part about that is that it's true. But just because it's true doesn't mean that it is any easier. In fact, it almost makes it worse because how on earth are we supposed to "love ourselves" when we are constantly bombarded with books and movies and magazines and rules that tell us otherwise? And seriously Hollywood, could we stop with the over romanticized versions of love and relationships already because I'm not sure I've ever really heard of a guy a girls been pining over for months/years chase her down on a rainy, autumn night professing how he's been a fool and he's really loved her from the moment they first met in college. Shit like that doesn't happen in real life (although if it has happened to you I'm willing to say that am wrong). But we're made to believe that it does and that we should want that for ourselves and it if we don't have that or get that then we're broken.

But we're not broken. There is nothing wrong with us. We are smart, independent, strong women who are going to be o.k.