Different Kinds of Being Single

It's been a while since I've written on this blog, which merely is a result of forgetfulness and my decision to voice my opinions elsewhere, namely to myself. But I figured something out today that I thought was worth launching into the stratosphere.

But first, a bit of background.

I'm dating this guy now. It's officially been two weeks; unofficially it's been six. I've never been in a relationship before. I've only ever dated one guy for one month, during which I convinced myself we were a couple though we never actually were. But me and this new guy, who is now my boyfriend, have been friends for over a year now. We always treated each other incredibly platonically. It was one of those things where we initially refused to even consider each other simply because we were each too obvious a choice for the other, so obvious that it almost seemed dumb. Only recently did we get so close as friends that we began to question what kind of friendship we had.

I should mention at this point that he and I are both student leaders in the same college Christian ministry. Luckily, neither of us had any devious intentions, and we both approached this in a very innocent way. I still insist that I'm not going to kiss him for a good long time. He thinks I mean marriage. What I haven't told him is that I'm going to wait until it means something. That is to say, I'll kiss him if we get to the point where we have admitted to each other that we love the other and are in love. But that's a whole other story.

I've been single most of my life, and when you live in that mode for long enough, it's typical to try out different kinds of being single. Back when I was frumpy, I was desperately single, single by default, single because I didn't count as a girl yet (at least that's how I felt). 

And then I was single and oh-so-ready-to-mingle. I got gussied up every day on the off chance that some college fella would decide to check me out. I relished that stuff, though I never admitted to it. 

And then, for a brief period this past summer, I was dating a guy, though I was still technically single the whole time. In that phase, I tried to make sure that I wasn't too excited about him thinking I was attractive. By that point, I'd already come to terms with the fact that feeling hot because guys hit on you is one of the more empty feelings you can have. 

And then I was fully single again, and I seriously considered a revenge rebound. I thank God that I didn't go through with it - the candidate for being the rebound was easily twice as attractive as the other guy and I deeply desired to post pictures of us on Facebook just to take a jab at the old flame. I'm so grateful I didn't though, because that would have gone down in history as the most immature thing I would have ever done.

That phase didn't last long. Soon I was trying to let God sustain me, while also working towards being as healthy as I possibly could be. I was starting to recognize the beauty of my own body, not for any boy's sake, but for my own. That was a fun phase. I didn't care who thought what of me. I was into me! And it was so fun being single then; I had a crush on me and I would flirt with me, so no one else had to. What a time.

Then I began realizing that though that was a strong, independent woman that was into herself (in a relatively healthy way), it would be another thing entirely to be THAT comfortable being me if I wasn't perfectly shaped. So I entered into a phase of not having that perfect body that I worked so hard to attain, and instead developed a crush on myself in my new body, not one that feels more like me, but one that proves to me that I can find beauty just by looking for it. And I did.

So now, I'm not single. I'm in my first relationship, and it's great, and my body isn't perfect, but I'm still crushing hardcore on me. And though I still plan on becoming healthy again and reaching my goal weight, I am at my confidence peak. This isn't the first time I've had lumps where I didn't want them to be. This isn't the first time I've looked at myself in the mirror and admired who I saw. But this is the first time that those two things happened at the same time. And that's a beautiful thing indeed.