I love my marriage.
My wife is amazing, we have the cutest 2-week-old baby girl, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. But when I look back at my life before I met Sabrina, I wish I could do it again.
And no, not because it was so amazing.
I want to do it again because it sucked. Or I guess a better way to put it is that I wish I could do it again because I sucked at being single.
Strangely enough, I feel like I’ve learned more about being single from being married than I ever did from being single. And maybe that’s a common thing for people to feel. Maybe we all kind of fumble our way through single life, only to have things finally make sense once we’ve left that stage of our lives.
See, I was miserable when I was single. It seemed to be a constant reminder that I wasn’t good enough. Every time I was rejected I felt justified in thinking that I was never going to find somebody who would love me.
I hated being single, and I wanted to be married.
While I don’t think everybody finds single life as painful as I found it to be, I do think that many single people share this same idea – that being single sucks and being married is great.
And yeah, that’s partly correct.
Being married is great.
It’s great for all the reasons that you would think and for even more reasons you wouldn’t.
But being single doesn’t need to suck.
Even so, one of the most common questions I get asked by my single friends is, “Is being married the best?” While I appreciate the question, I don’t believe any of them are actually curious about my marriage.
Instead, I think the question gets asked more often as a way for them to validate this belief – that being single sucks, and if they could just get married life wouldn’t suck as much.
I’m not sure about everybody else, but being single was only miserable for me because – like I said earlier – I didn’t think I was good enough for anybody. If I had known that I was enough for somebody, and that I was worth being loved, being rejected wouldn’t have been so hard.
While I can’t go back and do things over again, there are a few things the ghost of Denver present would want the ghost of Denver past to know.
I feel like most of my friends tried to make me feel better by telling me to be patient, and that someday I would find the right person. But honestly, I may not have.
Side note: Thank you to all those who put up with me when I was at my worst, and who tried to help. I still have a voice message saved from one of you reaching out in the middle of the night to make sure I was doing alright.
Meeting Sabrina came down to a swipe on a dating app. If one of us hadn’t had the app, or if one of us hadn’t swiped “yes” to the other, or if Sabrina hadn’t paid $10 to change her location from California to Idaho, we wouldn’t have even met.
And while I may have found somebody else if I hadn’t met Sabrina, the truth is that I may not have.
There are too many amazing single people out there for me to be able to honestly say that simply being amazing guarantees somebody a partner.
However, regardless of whether or not I had found somebody to spend my life with, I am enough.
We all are enough.
You are enough.
Not only are you enough for one person – you’re enough for hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people.
Think about it.
How many people in your lifetime will actually get to know you well enough to accurately make a decision on whether or not you’re good enough for them?
I’m not talking about acquaintances or even good friends.
When you really stop and think about it, how many people during your entire life will actually spend the time getting to know you well enough to know all the little things that make you the unique person you are?
Maybe a hundred?
If you’re lucky maybe a couple hundred?
There are, like, 8 billion people out there!
You are enough for so many people just the way you are. They just don’t know you. Or, you know what? Maybe they do know you, but they hear you talking yourself down so much that they don’t take the time to see that you’re actually pretty awesome.
So stop thinking you aren’t worth being loved. You are! So many people out there would love spending the rest of their lives with you. The fact that they aren’t with you doesn’t mean you have no worth. It simply means they haven’t been given the opportunity to see it yet.
Enjoy being yourself.
Own it.
Don’t apologize for the things that make you different. Trust me, they aren’t pushing away the right people. They’re simply removing the wrong people from your life.
Be grateful.
If you do end up finding one of the people you’re right for, it will be much more obvious without all the wrong people there distracting you.
Don’t wait until marriage to finally figure out that you’re worth being loved. You’re worth being loved right now.
So love yourself, and get out there!
Or maybe don’t get out there…you know. Coronavirus and all that.
Stay socially distant for a while, and then get back out there.
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