My Keys...

I am that friend. You have one similar, or you might be that friend. The one with the intune advice, the one who doesn't look like they're listening but shock you by repeating what you've said, verbatim, and giving a solution in no time. That's me. And it weirds me out considering I always get asked about love and managing relationships.

I am single, as I'm sure you might've picked up on, but I get tasked with sorting through relationship drama and skirmishes like I'm paid to do so. My idealistic view of love, but my realistic view point of life puts me in this weird place where I don't know what I'm talking about, but I feel what I'm talking about. I don't like to say I know something when I don't (because then if I'm put on the spot and am wrong I get embarrassed) so I'm not going to say to my friends "Who's got two thumbs and is excellent at relationships? This girl!" But that never stops them from asking me how to show someone love, or rather, sort through that love.

I would guess that because they know my methodical approach to life, as well as my genuine want to be a good person, a demonstrative person, they'll ask my advice for things. For instance, I was on the phone with my homeboy about his girlfriend for nearly two hours the other day; they're having miscommunications and misunderstandings left and right - their slight age difference is making him feel shaky. I responded that they should have an open dialouge, a sit-down where no judgement is passed and they just say what they need to say to one another. I also let him know no woman, no person, can make or break him unless he lets them; if they were to break up, his heart will go on.

W puts me in the same place, sometimes admitting to channeling my mannerisms and ways while in her relationships which...weird, right? I feel like my copyrighted self has been infringed upon by that, especially when she gets to reap the benefits of being "me" while being her. I digress. For the most part I don't mind, but there's this fretful little seed in me that's sprouting with my position.

Let me be honest here; I don't really like being the logical one, the one with all the patience and all the time but none of the experience. I feel like it's not my place to give advice as I have no credentials to fall back on. If I had a laundry list of successful relationships and a ring on my finger, sure, ask away. The fact remains, it's just me though; just this small girl with a big heart and without a pair of hands to put it in.

I feel good for helping them, legitly, but at the same time I keep thinking "I would totally have this handled/This wouldn't be an issue with me." It's egotistical, but it makes that small, fretting seed in me feel better until I realize it's not the right kind of "better." I shouldn't say "if it were me" because...well, I don't really know what I'd be like. I can muse and posture on it all day, but the fact remains that I've never had to really do those sorts of things, compromise, talk it out, etc. with another person before.

The romantic in me is listless and waiting for a chance to prove itself. The nurturer in me is still content with just helping others. The me under it all is just tired of being the good angel on people's shoulders. The me under it all is over being everyone's super woman, and still walking away with empty hands and a wrinkled cape.

I asked myself a few days ago why I bother, asked myself 'What are you looking for Tes?' What is keeping this candle lit dispite a very short wick? I got my answer in a dream. In it, I was myself, not my dream self of model proportions, and I was in a place that was beautiful and peaceful. And there was a guy who was digging me for just being me, and we were comfortably together. Violins, cellos, the works ensued, and I felt beautiful with every cell in my little dream body. And I woke up feeling beautiful, and I went to work and had customers yell at me still feeling beautiful, and I still, after waking and walking for hours, feel as beautiful as I did in that dream.

And there is the answer, the thing I didn't know I was looking for but kept frantically searching for in the arms of other people, in the approval of other people. I want to feel beautiful, all the time. I want to be comfortable in my own skin with people, and trust them. I want to find love at my own pace and not feel so put upon to do so by my own zany perceptions of what people my age are doing. I was once told when you stop looking for your keys, you find all the other things you need to find first, and then, your keys.

So yes, I am that friend. The single, pretty one. The one who everyone thinks has all the answers. I'm also the friend who's lost her keys and has finally stopped looking for them. And it's feeling better and better every day.

<3