Eating alone..

I want to remember this moment as the first time I took myself out on a proper date, dressed up, looking nice and at a proper venue which is full of class and romance. This wasn’t a planned date though, this just happened.

My heart wishes for company, I thrive with others, but perhaps I don’t feel enough love towards myself because seldom do I spend enough time with me, alone, vulnerable and uncomfortable. Forced to meet myself in the stillness and to sit with all that I have to offer.

Sitting here now I feel vulnerable and yet fully content. There is a sense of freedom that one feels when they let go of caring about what others think and right now I am trying to embrace that freedom.

There is a sense of liberation when one doesn’t give a rats a*# about acceptance from others and their lack of appreciation of you and how you show up. I constantly fear that people will see me here alone and feel pitty for me, but it is I that feels pitty towards myself. I take any time spent alone as a metric and indication of the loneliness I feel. The lack of love and acceptance that I’ve battled my whole life as I’ve relocated from one place to another.

As a child you don’t understand rejection, you just crave love and if you aren’t taught the distinction between social rejection and self rejection, then you grow into an adult who feels forever not enough, forever alone and forever craving to be loved by those around them; even strangers. But this void has nothing to do with others, it’s a void that grows deeper and more hollow the more you move away from yourself and seek validation from others.

I recognise that it’s time to face this void, the constant need to seek validation, love and acceptance from others is redundant. You will never get enough and you will always be left disappointed either in yourself or in those around you. It’s time, that I face the music, that I look inward and find the self acceptance, love and non-judgement that I have sought from the world around me.

You see, as social beings we will always crave love and connection from others and there is nothing more beautiful than finding this safe haven with others. But, we also suffer from pain the more we seek the answers from outside instead of within. The answers we so desperately seek is within us, all part and parcel with the source of unconditional love that we can give. But the world has taught us to share this with others and to extend it to those around us, when in fact it should have taught us to extend this inward and to effortlessly and endlessly bathe ourselves in this fountain of love that we all have within. First you must love yourself (outside of your ego), then, you can love others for who they are and not what they give you.

I guess it’s never too late to start, it’s never too late to try and to explore this love. It’s hard and perhaps facing the pain may seem exhausting and impossible. But as I sit here, in a restaurant full of of people who have someone to share their experiences with, I have come to appreciate that I can share this moment, this presence with myself. Instead of worrying about the judgements of those around me, I need to realise that I myself am the harshest judge and critic. I feel sorry for myself for not having someone around, but reality is this opportunity is a chance to take in my own being. Next time, I hope, I won’t be so anxious to meet with myself.

Love Always,

Miss Dreamer