Living, Loving and Healing

Whoever said that you must be fully healed in order to be in a new relationship or to live your life does not understand that being fully healed is a long journey.

And truthfully, if we have been hurt, and the majority of us have been in some way, still carry some of the pain deep down. Most won’t even know what type of pain we carry around because bury it into the deepest parts of ourselves, that it would take someone willing to invest and dig so it would be revealed. But, that takes a lot of work and a lot of trust and vulnerability. Ugh. So hard for me. Is it hard for you too?

That being said, you don’t stop living your life while you are healing. That is just impossible to do. The world keeps turning.

You also don’t have to refuse to be in a relationship with someone new just because you are healing. There is certainly something to be said about taking a pause. Absolutely. One of the first questions I was asked when my closest friends found out about the end of my marriage was:

”Are you going to start dating again?”

That was a big fat no. I wasn’t ready. Sure, I could have easily gone on a ton of dinner dates and just had fun. I, however, am not really that kind of girl.

I crave connection. I love it when someone touches my soul and emotional intelligence and we can have conversations that are deeper than just our physical attraction to each other. I get bored easily by just flirting and I roll my eyes at too many inappropriate comments. I consider myself to be someone who is not superficial, so I am just not interested in superficial relationships.

I am really not interested in superficial dating relationships.

During the last couple of years, while healing and coming to terms with my own mistakes and missteps, it has become very clear what I want in a man. I don’t just want a partner. I am not entering in to a business deal with a man, where we split 50/50 of the assets.

I want a friend.

I want a lover.

I want to have someone who knows me and knows what I am worth.

I want someone puts in the effort. That it isn’t one sided.

I want someone to experience life with and visit the most beautiful places in the world thst I have read about.

I want someone who is NOT afraid to take the leap.

I want to dance in the living room with this person. I want to grow old with this person and feel young with them at the same time.

I want to laugh a lot with this person.

I want to connect deeply with this person.

I don’t necessarily need them to check off all of my boxes. I used to be that way, and honestly, I was just disappointed most of the time. But I want a soul deep, physically rich, heart pounding, exciting, fun, real, friendly, adventurous, bold and real connection.

While I wait, I am living my life. While I work through all the different parts of me that still need to heal, I will enjoy and love this life that I get to live.

You don’t stop living and loving while you heal.

I am so grateful for every day that I get to wake up.

I am so excited to turn 40 next week.

Choose to embrace every part of this beautiful, crazy, hard, whirlwind short life. Take a deep breath if you need to, pause for a bit, but don’t stop living your life. Go out and do the beautiful and amazing things you were called to. Go out and love people.

Refuse to wait to live life until you have fully healed. That day may never come. It certainly hasn’t for me. So I will choose living.

Rooting you on,

Tiffany Rhea