Insecure
“You never struck me as the insecure type. I always thought you were single because you wanted to be.”
A younger version of me may have been enraged. Quick to defend – to deny. To explain. But I simply smiled.
None of this was for him. It wasn’t for him to understand.
How he stumbled back into my life for this brief exchange was as curious as the conversation that followed.
A message had popped up in my Facebook Messenger a couple months ago. A random name with a photo of an animal and I realized it was a guy I had “dated” in eighth grade who lived in a neighboring town.
At this age, pre-cellphones, we had written letters a couple of times over the summer after meeting at a Thursday night church group. I mostly remembered him sharing he liked to rebuild World War II aircrafts if memory serves me correctly, and he could play the piano, which I found adorable.
At 16, we had reconnected again, and he asked me on a date to dinner and a movie. He got into a minor car accident on the way home and he didn’t call me again.
Our paths would cross now and then throughout the rest of high school as we both ran cross country, and again in college when we both attended the same university.
But that was when, as it was with most of my peers, my path diverged from his. He met his wife his senior year of college and married her shortly after graduating while I continued being single outside of a relationship here and there.
We hadn’t spoken in years until that in mid-May day when he had reached out.
His message came after midnight one night, asking if I was still awake and available to chat. The time and content of his message were curious. How did he know I was still single? We hadn’t been friends on Facebook in years. Was he reaching out because he no longer was?
I had been fast asleep when his message arrived but responded the next day after reading his odd request. We connected over a slightly awkward conversation and quickly caught up with where life had taken us.
He was still very much married, and his wife, in true Midwest style, had just given birth to their fourth child.
There was a pause, and he said he’d stumbled onto my blog and had been reading some of my posts.
He had been surprised at the content. At my longing for a partner in life. Then came those words.
“You never struck me as the insecure type. I always thought you were single because you wanted to be.”
“You never struck me as the insecure type. I always thought you were single because you wanted to be.”
It was funny to think of where the last 15 years had taken us since we last interacted in any real way in college. He had stepped into the life that was applauded by both those familiar and unfamiliar.
He has not been subjected to the judgment, or the shame. The sympathetic glances, or the curious looks. The constant questions, or furrowed brows trying to discern your hidden flaw that kept men from staying.
He did his life exactly “right” according to the unwritten rules of society. He fell in love in college. Married her. And had beautiful babies with her.
He was living the dream, as he stated in his message to me.
There’s no shame from society to those living within the lines.
Love is celebrated; as is marriage, and each birth announcement. For someone walking beside the same partner for five years, for seven years, or even 10 or more years, it’s impossible to understand what my life choices have been met with. The tiny seeds of doubt planted in my soul that grow over time, their roots twisting tighter around until I try to inhale deeply and can’t get a full breath.
Why wasn’t I married?
When would it be my turn?
Was there something wrong with me?
I would do more, accomplish more. Never stop. I learned to validate my existence. To rewrite my story and change the narrative. I created an existence in which I reached so far into this big, beautiful world, people stopped asking me where my boyfriend was and instead inquired to my next adventure.
And I am leading a life more fulfilling than I ever dreamed. But my mind is still my enemy at times. My heart is filled with love and longing at the same time. My feet are planted in a world I love but with visits home to my family I ache to be closer to a life I left behind. I question and second-guess and sit with my pain when it comes to visit me.
But my struggles are no more or less than those of many around me. They are the struggles of being human. The struggles of self-doubt and questioning, of growing and learning and making mistakes and wanting to be better.
I’m simply comfortable sharing my insecurities out loud.
I think the world has enough smiling photos on Social Media showing the beautiful, love-crazed couple. The perfected cheese plates. Flawless, tanned skin. Curves in all the right places. Hair tumbling down one’s back in loose, carefree waves. Smokey eyes peering out from contoured faces and plump lips.
Perhaps the world needs a bit more real and vulnerable and broken.
Perhaps it needs to feel seen and heard more and met with more empathy and understanding that unachievable standards.
And perhaps I can be one small step in normalizing all paths of life, or whispering out loud, “that hurts, doesn’t it?” and allowing others to feel less alone instead of that they are not enough.
I’m glad he reached out. I’m glad his life is full and he’s living the dream, as he shared.
But insecurities and all, so am I.
It took me years to say that, feel that and truly believe that. Sometimes I think it’s easier to love someone else than to fully love yourself.
What he saw as insecurity I saw as strength. As a courage he’ll never know or understand.
And that’s okay.
Because at the end of the day, we are both living the dream.
“It’s alright, it’s okay, it’s alright, it’s okay
You’re not a monster, just a human
That you made of your mistakes”