Admit 1

I’ve always considered myself to be an independent person.  I firmly believed that the people I chose to have in my life were there because I wanted them to be there not because I needed them.  And of course if it came down to it, I could always depend on myself.  However, this independence was never really tested until a few years ago.

When I originally came up with this theory on life, I was in a relationship.  And since then, I had always been relationships.   It was three years ago that another long term relationship had come and gone, leaving me standing there all by myself.  There was no next boy in line to take over the last boy’s role.  There was just me, “Miss Independent”.   It was then that I figured out that I wasn’t as independent as I thought I was or would have liked to have been.  

I don’t do well with being alone.  I don’t like doing things by myself but I think that’s a pretty standard feeling for most people.  Everything is more fun when you have someone to share it with but the problem I had was what happens when you don’t have someone available to do things with?

For example, I love movies.  It can be proven by the seriously impressive DVD collection I have accumulated over the years.   The problem is that seeing a movie in a theater is typically a two or more person activity.  For months I had said I wanted to just go all by myself and see a movie but every time I thought about it, I ended up chickening out.  I was afraid of how pathetic I would look going to the theater and sitting there all alone.  It was this phobia that prevented me from seeing a lot of movies I really wanted to see.

The other week, I saw a preview for a movie that I instantly knew I had to see and this morning I woke up thinking today was a great day for a movie.  I had nothing to do on the last day of a long weekend and I wanted to spend that day doing something fun and relaxing.   Sure I could have called my mom or gotten some friends together to go but that required a lot of planning and I didn’t want to work around anyone or their schedules so I took the opportunity to go by myself.

It was fantastic!  For the first time in a while I didn’t care what other people thought.  Plenty of people walked in in couples or groups and I sat there all by myself, totally excited to see this movie.  Unfortunately there were no girlfriends there to rate the previews with, gossip with about the cute parts, or recap the movie with when it was over.  There was no boy there to hold my hand during the romantic moments or comfort me when I cried during the sappy parts (and yes I cried).  But regardless, I now know that being alone can’t hold me back from doing the things I want to do.  Yes, it might be more fun with other people but if no one is around, I can definitely depend on me.  Hopefully I can use this confidence and apply it to other things in my life I am scared to do on my own. 

And if you want to know what movie I saw, log in tomorrow for my take on that :)