they say someone can only meet another as deeply as they've met themselves. i know this to be true as i've lived it and learned it. i'm grateful to learn it early on. i have been on the receiving end of distant, resistant love and i have exerted this onto others as well.

i can't speak for the whole of where this comes from. i believe it's different for each person. on the surface level it is about meeting self. when we immerse into deep love within ourselves, heal wounds of the past, engage in shadow work and work with our inner child (healing, integration, etc.)... that is meeting self deeply. when we choose self over and over again, put in the effort and do the inner work, we ultimately open vast gateways and floods of divine universal love waiting to greet us.

i'm certain that i will only be able to have the relationship i long to with someone who meets themselves so that we can align in divine union to create magic, or simply bask in it. whether that magic is art, making love, creating a home, raising children, and/or various work projects and collaborations... it can be a multitude of infinite things.

like beyoncé & jay-z, cory & topanga, morticia & gomez addams... two people taking on the world together as teammates, best friends, divine lovers, queen & king (and all variations), etc. a power couple. that deep, divine, erotic soulmate love. uplifting each other. if they're successful together that's great too... whether they're in the same field or not.

it's about two individuals who are extremely successful (in multiple ways, in career and self) and whole and badass on their own that when they join together it's an even more dope explosion of all of those things amplified.

for some time i would text potential romantic partners and found the attention as a salve for my loneliness even though it was just a band-aid that held me from that self-meeting. this was the catalyst of my self-love journey, and was even part of it. i felt empowered in a sense and for some time but eventually the emptiness of texting/sexting was unfulfilling. i went to bed at night longing for one person in particular, or feeling alone and empty once the phone stopped lighting up. i knew deep down that despite texting one person or more, depending on the day, that it still wasn't what i knew i wanted.

i was falling in love with someone who i'd known for long but we weren't able to be physically together yet, living far from each other. putting it off was my call. i didn't trust distance, and now i know it was intuition speaking. i poured so much of myself into that person but they were not ready to receive my love. maybe not even wanting it, really. the reciprocation wasn't there the way i hoped. i thought i was ready to give but i wasn't prepared for that (i did it anyway) or the receiving either. through this journey with them and myself, i also learned that they truly hadn't met themselves either. it hurt me in the end and i had to retrieve my energy. this is why i chose celibacy, even virtually.

i fell into that virtual attention honeypot many times until i lived in new york. in new york i found myself finally dating for real albeit casually and more often than i ever had in my life. this was also because i was getting older of course. i was keen on finding a partner to deeply love. i held the men i met to extremely high standards of how they were treating me. i thought i needed them to be ready to commit. no one ever wanted to commit, and i was more and more refusing to "hook up." it took me some time to understand why i was attracting this. i hadn't yet committed to myself.

one night i was at dinner with my grandparents and my cousin. dating came up because she's in a relationship and we were updating about our lives. i mentioned that i was confused and went back and forth between wanting a relationship or not. she said, "when it's the right person, you won't question it." that stuck with me for obvious reasons and also gave me hope that i wasn't necessarily doing anything wrong, i just wasn't there yet.

the tiring groundhog-day-style dating life i put myself through for too long led me to three conclusions:

1. i wasn't ready for the love i thought i was ready and longing for.
2. i didn't feel worthy of being committed to. i hadn't done the self-work required to be the partner i wanted to be and have.
3. i had some major shit to do before i could really be in a relationship.

#2 is what i'm most grateful i realized. jaded people can get very caught up in "what have you done for me lately? what am i getting out of this?" that we forget we also have to give. relationships should be an even energy exchange, or else we risk drainage. rarely do people reflect on what they have to offer rather than what they believe they deserve to receive. don't get me wrong, we all deserve the WORLD! but can we give it too?

men are conditioned to be providers; women are conditioned to be such over-the-top givers that we can forget ourselves and then when the lack of self-care catches up to us, we become bitter and turn to that resentful outlook of, "what about me?!" it's not that there aren't situations where that can be a genuine concern, but i think it's important to be self-aware and recognize what exactly is happening when we begin to feel that way.

so... after my experience with the same person who wasn't reciprocating the way i felt i needed, i also had a questioning epiphany (rather recently while in conversation with two other women about relationships)... what am i offering? am i giving because i want to? or am i giving in the hopes that they'll love me? what do i have to give that's worth receiving? am i ready to give?

of course i wanted to give, but i just gave and gave and gave and gave with no reciprocation. i was giving from an empty vessel which only leads to disaster. most importantly, i gave without consciousness and intent. i was loving on auto-pilot and illusion.

reciprocation should be an agreement. if this agreement is not made, stop giving. reserve your energy. reciprocate with yourself. learn yourself and how you love.

the reflection of "what do i have to offer?" additionally contributed to my realization that i am not in a place to have the relationship i know i want. i'm working on myself right now. i'm bettering myself and bettering my career so that i have foundations to build upon with someone. i meet myself deeply, but i am still in the process.

i don't think this has to hold me back from dating or relationships, but i do know myself enough to know that pausing dating has been healthier for me. i can get lost in the potential romance and forget myself. i don't want this to happen again until i am in a safe and whole space to do so. until it becomes not forgetting myself at all. i had to come home to myself. to remember and uncover who i am. to be with myself, love myself, parent myself, be my own "person" for everything. it's a process. and it's turning out to be rather fun.

i know who i want to be for myself and you. i'm deprogramming and reprogramming and de-conditioning that woman so i can discover and uncover the fun and smart and powerful and ambitious and hilarious and sexy and sovereign and adventurous and beautiful and sexual and loving and creatress and erotic being that i am. a whole womban.

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