Finding the Not-ONEs.

yes, this picture is random, but i wanted to add a pic in case anyone wanted to PIN this.

This is dedicated to anyone who has ever had a relationship NOT work out. You know, all 5 of us.  NOT to the three friends of mine who got engaged YESTERDAY. Congratulations, by the way.

Recently I had the opportunity to provide comforting words to a friend of mine. It is an interesting thing, when giving comfort/advice, how often we end up saying words we need to hear ourselves.

This was the best I could come up with, "Remember you're not the only girl who has been completely shafted by a guy. It happens to all of us. That's why movies have happy endings, because we don't want them to be like life."

Sometimes we don't get what we want. Even if we want it really bad and wish every time the clock strikes "11:11" that it will come true.  

Only hours later another friend recounted her experience with something she saw in BYU's art exhibit Beauty and Belief. "There was this fantastic little piece, two door signs from a 14th century mosque. They were Arabic calligraphy carved in ivory and it translated to say 'O Opener of all doors/Open for me the best door.'" 

Sometimes we spend too much time trying to force things that shouldn't be. I always like to say to people, "You can't marry everyone." Of all things in life this is one we only need to make work one time. That should be easy enough, right? And yet we stress and stress when things don't go write with one person. It hurts and we cry and angst (it's a verb now) and want to throw things at peoples' heads.  Then we make dramatic statements like, "I'll never love again" or write songs or take up boxing and then we get over it, or we don't depending on our choices. 

Back to my first friend: She responded to my advice, oh so wisely, with "And eventually, probably not right away, but eventually, you will find something/someone that makes you even happier than you were before. The hard part is waiting. Waiting for a day, you don't know when, will come." 

We (I am going to go out on a limb and say especially girls) get SO attached to people we have "crushes" on and it becomes a life-or-death, this-is-THE-love-of-my-life situation. 

When, maybe, most of the time, it's not. Let's see, pretty sure that the boy I had a crush on when I was in 7th grade ended up being a drug addict. I had written his name on the bottom of my shoe, how could I ever move on from that?

I did. Again and again and again and every time I've been convinced on some sort of level "he is the ONE" but however many guys later...there is still just one "winner" and I haven't found him yet. I've watched lots of my friends find their "not the ONEs" over and over again, it is a part of life. 

We need to trust that when we get to the Best Door it will open for us. We won't have to cling to the legs of someone who doesn't love us as they try and walk away. We won't have to change ourselves to fit someone else's "type". We will find something that fits and that will be mutually beneficial for all parties involved. 

Sometimes I go to the store and buy something that doesn't fit quite right. Maybe it isn't a color I love or has an ugly bow I think would be easy to "just cut off". I still buy it because it's SO CUTE. I usually regret this. Not always at first, but the regret comes. We should accept if orange doesn't look good on us or if that shirt only looks good on mannequins and not humans that are shaped like humans. Or maybe we hate lace even though everyone else LOVES it. 

It is the same with relationships. We can scratch our heads about why things look so good on the hanger but don't fit right or don't feel right but we don't want to live with things/people that don't feel good and right and comfortable or don't make us feel like our BEST selves.

Also, if it's sold-out (emotionally unavailable) we just need to move on. Sometimes we need to go to lots and lots of stores to find something that fits perfect.

I can't believe I just compared dating to clothing, every girl better love this post. 

We need to invest in things that are the best for us. Early in this post I semi-criticized movies for always ending happy, but I do believe in happy endings. I think we all have it in us, if we make the right choices to feel like a princess or feel like we won the National Championship at the end of our stories. We see in movies the struggle that the characters go through to end up all hunky-dory at the end. We have to endure our own struggles, we have to learn from the bad experiences so that we can earn our happy endings. Spoiler: our bad experiences will last longer than a 2 hour movie but we will survive--just like we all made it through Russell Crowe's singing and still loved Les Miserables.

We need to seek out the people who love us for us. Who let us be the best version of the person we want to be. Someone who will make sacrifices for us and someone who we want to make sacrifices for.  Someone who doesn't mock the things that make us us. Someone who loves us as madly as we love them and visa versa. Because what's the point of a relationship if you don't feel really, truly loved? Why buy the dress unless it makes you look really, truly awesome? And why does anyone wear 4 inch heels? Really?

Last thought: Online shopping can be a disaster, but works great for some people!
I had to carry this analogy as far as I could.