Society leads you to believe that you are a downright degenerate if you would rather spend your Friday night in with yourself, pale of ice cream in hand accompanied by your lit up TV screen.
On the contrary, I think that’s courageous. I was once a believer of this statement. I spent every waking moment with friends to occupy my mind so that I don’t have to admit to my self… that I… I can never be alone. Me alone? No way. “Love yourself” they say. I spent long minutes, hours, days even dissecting this rule.
I asked myself questions… how am I supposed to love myself ? What is it to truly love yourself ? How will I feel? None of that ever made sense to me. A couple months ago, my life 360d on me. That day, I truly realized what it was like to be alone in this world. I constantly surrounded myself with people I called my friends. Weekends were never spent alone and even weeknights i had this burning element underneath my feet sending me through the door to spend even more time being around people.
Quite frankly, it was tiring… We hed life took a turn on me for what I thought was the worst… I had no idea what to do with it. I had no one but my boyfriend who was out of town for work 65% of the time and my parents. Needless to say, I couldn’t have done any of this without them.
I thought I had no one and if I’m being honest with myself, I didn’t have anyone.
But I then learned and realized that I didn’t really need anyone. I can’t say I ever knew how to love myself but I was pretty good at pretending to say the least . That didn’t get me anywhere because at the end of the day, when my shaded in eyebrows and lipstick was washed off, I was still me and still felt empty. At first, it ate away at me. I was miserable, depressed, and some days I even contemplated ending it all because I didn’t see a point. I don’t have friends I told my self … no one wants to be around me or spend time with me.
What’s wrong with me ? Life could not have been more different. And I couldn’t bare the thought of being alone for a minute longer. I couldn’t control my outbursts, my emotions, my constant worrying and panic. I said to myself “this is rock bottom”. I was stuck in rock bottom for quite sometime. I lost all sense of being me and had little to no self confidence. I stopped working out, I couldn’t eat, social media became my worst enemy, and it even but strain on the very few relationships I had still.
I constantly convinced myself that I’m not okay, and I’m crazy which gave me even more excuse to feel sorry for myself instead of dealing with this In a more healthy way and hardening the fuck up. Feeling sorry for yourself is the new black, did you hear? Well, I didn’t miss that memo. It wasn’t until I was forced to take a stress leave at work when I realized that this cant go on.
I forced myself to get up, and change the aspects In my life that made me unhappy or that were dragging me down. Let’s be honest here, this wasn’t some legendary epiphany or a Hollywood moment where the music takes a crescendo and life all of a sudden life became good. I took small (very small) steps at the beginning but then it became easier and easier to take these steps.
I moved from a very toxic environment
I cleaned up all my friend lists on all my social media platforms, I cut down on pointless phone diddling, I started doing things by myself that I could never imagine doing in the past, and I slowly became copacetic with being my own buddy. I used to love hitting the bar and having a few to many weekly, but that desire has feathered away and believe me I have found a number of other more productive things to do with my time. I cook, and come up with new recipes, educate myself on my own time, watch more movies, go to yoga and hit the gym, and I even took up fencing again (yes! I mean I’m a bona fide lady musketeer) All of this,
I have learned to do with myself, not by myself. I made a new friend, a friend that will never betray me, deliberately hurt me, stay honest and true and at this point in my life, that friend is the only friend I could possibly need. That friend is me and I love her. So when you ask yourself, how am I supposed to love myself ? Think of it as if you’re a completely different entity and learn to love that entity for who he or she is.
Being lonely doesn’t mean you’re alone, and being alone certainly doesn’t mean you’re lonely. You have you. I have me. And when you truly learn what it is like to rip the band aid off and be by yourself and really mean it you will love yourself to unimaginable extents. And to me that is beautiful, strong, and courageous
By Cami Brodsky