Dating : The Unbecoming of Me

It took an exhausting and exhilarating amount of work to become the person I am right now.

It was, at once, both an intuitive and counter-intuitive process. For I came to realize it would never be about me pushing, fighting, and trying with all my might to become something, someone, I wished to be, or thought I should be.

No.

I needed to stop being everything I wasn’t.

I needed to unbecome.

Unbecome everything I thought I had to be, was supposed to be, heard I should be, was taught to be. I needed to unbecome everything I was trying to prove I could be to others, or perhaps even, prove to myself. I needed to unbecome everything I never really was or needed to be in order to be loved, to be accepted, to belong. To be seen, in the hollows of the world’s eyes, as someone valuable, worthy, or real.

Some might say who I’ve become is unbecoming of a woman in her thirties. Alone. Although when they say that, I know, they tend to mean single, or perhaps more honestly, unmarried and childless. Lacking all the things they think I should have by now in order to be respected as an adult female in this society, a grown woman, and taken seriously. As if my realness as a woman teeters ever so precariously on whether or not I’ve fulfilled my duty to become a wife, or a mother. As if I could only truly exist in relation to someone else’s existence; as if it were somehow not enough to exist for myself. Alone. For what else could I be here to do? For how else could I feel happy and complete within myself and my life? Alone. They pity me, worry for me, even fear for me at times.

I can see it in their eyes.

And yet, here I am, alone, and the happiest I’ve ever been. And yet, I have learned to care for myself with more love and kindness than ever. And yet, I do my best to offer myself the acceptance and attentiveness I’ve always craved, the kind I so often used to seek, even weep for, from others. And yet, I continue to witness myself commit unflinchingly to my dreams and desires with a calm and yet knowing devotion I never thought I could possess.

And yet, I love my life and everything I do in it, now more than ever.

For I have found the place within me that nobody can touch or take away. And amidst any and all of my frustrations, desperations, all my faltering, my fears, it is there, in the cupped caverns of my consciousness, that I carry my peace. This breathtaking, unconditional, unwavering love for myself. The part of me I hold on to when there are storms raging all around and within me. The part I touch when I need to remember the heat of my own power. The part that burns, quietly, with white-hot energy; steadfast and constant, and yet still, always, ever active and alive. The part that forgives me, over and over, as many times as it takes. The part that loves me anyway, always, with all my suffering, my judgments, my weaknesses, my cowardice. With every single one of my failures and mistakes.

I have not, now or in any sense or tense, become anything or anyone more than I always was. But I am slowly, ever, unbecoming everything that never loved me, everything that never fit; everything that no longer belongs to me, everything that never did.

I am unbecoming, so I may simply continue, to be.