In less than one month, I will celebrate my 1 year anniversary of marriage. That's right...marriage! Even though it's become so commonplace to me to say "my husband" (and boy, did I wear out that phrase in the last many months) it is still strange to think that I've passed this milestone.
We're very happy. In just one year we've already built an incredible life together and we are working on building it up further. We have a shared investment account, a comfortable apartment, nice furniture, and an impressive stash of frozen meat, baking supplies, and spices. We have our own routines and rituals together and loads of inside jokes.
I look back on my old posts here and wish I could speak to my past self. Not just to tell her the joy that is eminent, but to tap in to her carefree spirit and poetic self-destruction, despite the irony of her self-awareness. I wish I could hug her and tell her that everything will be okay. But it will also be different.
I fantasized about love for years, over a decade even. I imagined a million ways someone could hold me on their lap, brush my hair from my face, kiss my temples, talk to me sweetly. I became an addict to these desires. I thought that one day, if they became true, I would cured of my perpetual unhappiness.
And in general, I am happier. I sleep better, eat better, shower more. But there's still a restless, lingering dissatisfaction that I can't shake, no matter how much love I absorb.
All of the resources online come back to the same cryptic piece of advice: love yourself! They say that because your parent didn't love you the right way, and even though you're all messed up inside, you should still find a way to love yourself because no one else is going to love you the way you should have been loved twenty years ago! How the hell is this possible?
I thought all that time ago and that someone would eventually scoop me up and save me at the edge of adulthood. Well, now I'm a 21 year old wife and I have to love myself