"ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE." -THE BEATLES

I still have no idea what love means. There have been many times that I have thought that I was in love. But love is so much more complicated than our society makes it out to be. Society makes us feel like one amazing kiss with a stranger and we are supposed to get married, because there has never been and will never be another kiss like that. We are trained and brainwashed to believe that just because you like someone or have really good sex with someone or have the same views or life goals, that you're just made for each other. We spend our entire lives trying to find "the one." And I'm totally guilty of this, no matter how much I try to fight it.

It is really, really hard to retrain your brain to think and believe in a different way than you've always been taught. Thinking back, I can't really remember how my mom explained love to me, or if she ever did. I do know that my mom was never "marriage crazy." I can't remember her talking about love and marriage or needing any of that. But, I became this completely hopelessly romantic woman and there's really no explanation as to why, except that I have felt pressured by society, for as long as I can remember, to have what is known as a "normal" life. 

I have mentioned before that I hate the word "normal." I hate it because it's a completely unattainable way of life. It doesn't mean anything. Yet, we work really hard to be "normal." But, if you asked 100,000 people what their definition of normal is, I can promise you, it would not be the same. Political views, religious views, diet, your place of origin, your race, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, and one hundred other things are taken into account when someone is telling you what their definition of "normal" is. We base our definitions of "normal" on the people we are currently hanging out with. I say "currently," because it is rare that you hang out with the same, exact type of people for your entire life. 

I have had multiple different groups of friends throughout my life. I've hung with the swim team kids but went to parties with the popular crowd when I was in high school. I've hung with the "pot heads" and the super straight-laced kids. I've hung with people who live very simple, easy, slow lives in the country. I've hung with people with very fast paced, chaotic, and exciting lives in the city. I've loved all different kinds of men and if you think this doesn't change you, it does. With each change of friend or lover, we change ourselves. This is not a bad thing, necessarily; it's perfectly natural. Perfectly natural to want to fit in. To adapt ourselves to each situation we are in. We dress differently and speak differently. Think differently and act differently. We don't want to admit this though, because what this does is it completely exposes us for the frauds that we are. That society makes us out to be. 

The last eleven months of my life has been about breaking this trend for myself. Because I am a fraud. I have changed and adapted myself for every single person I've ever known. Every man I've ever loved. Ask them each who I am and they would describe to you, a different girl. Each friend I've had. Each teacher. Each job application. We are constantly trying to fit into each and every role we play in life. And I got tired of it. I am exhausted from attempting to be what society believes to be "normal." Once you realize that "normal" is not a thing, it becomes a lot easier to escape from its wrath. But, there is a reason that most people do not try to escape from "normality." It's terrifying. 

Here's what I have learned about myself over the past year:

I'm insane. That's right, I'm certifiably crazy. As soon as I started to live my life for me, completely, wholly, and unapologetically, I became the town crazy. Because "normal" people want to get married. "Normal" people want kids. "Normal" people have lots and lots of things and stuff. "Normal" people want success and money. I want none of these things. So, yes. I'm crazy. Yep. Steer clear of the woman who has truly owned her own life. Learned to love herself and her body completely. Learned to appreciate a sunrise and sunset. Who lives for travel, life experiences and adventure. Who lives completely in the present. Stares up at the stars and attempts to understand existence. Eliminated her anxiety by releasing herself from toxic relationships. Believes that she is worth more than the unhappy marriage she was in. And doesn't want children because children are not something you have to fill an empty, selfish void in yourself. 

I am and have become everything that we teach our little girls to be. I have defaulted back to what I knew as a kid. And it's the most peace I've felt in my entire life. I wake up every day and what I ask myself is "what do I want to do today?" And then I do it. If that means laying in bed the entire day and binge watching a TV show. If that means writing. If that means listening to music all day and dancing around in my underwear. I do it. You're asking yourself questions right now. Like, "But aren't there are things that you "have" to do? You can't just do whatever you want every day." And I'll answer your question with a question. Why? Why do I "have" to do anything?

When I was an undergrad, I was in school for psychology and addiction. There's a whole story behind why I chose this path. But, that's for another day. One day, in one of my addiction classes, my favorite professor gave a lecture that has stuck with me every day since. She stood at the front of the class and asked us to yell out everything in life that we "have" to do. What we "need" to do every single day. So, we did. We yelled out things like shower, pay rent, go to work, go to school, turn in homework, exercise. Some people had kids, they said, take my kids to school, feed my children. There were arguments along the way. "You don't "have" to do that!," "You don't "need" to do that!," Each person had a different thing that they "had" to do each day, going back to my point earlier about how each persons definition of "normal" is different based on their lives path. But, we got it all up on the board. There were probably 70 things that a classroom of 40 people felt they "had" to do each day. My professor stood at the front of the class and explained that we actually have to do none of those things. People became frustrated. We have to eat! We have to shower! "But why?," she asked. 

My professors point was that we choose to do what we do, every single day. It's a choice. We choose to go to work because we choose to pay bills because we choose to live in shelter. We choose to go to work because we choose to eat. We choose to go to school because we choose to get a job in a certain field. We choose to feed our children and we choose to shower. Argue all you want, but there is actually nothing that you "have" to do in life. There is actually nothing that you "need" to do in life. Each day we wake up and we make a choice of how we want our lives to look, and we do it. But stop giving others, stop giving society the credit for the decisions that you make. You got your degree because you chose to work your ass off every day. Not because your mom would be pissed if you didn't get a job in advertising. You had children because you chose to give your life to a human being and love that human more than yourself. Not because society thinks that having babies is the right thing to do. The choices you make define you. They are what make you who you are. Stop giving credit to anyone else, but yourself. 

I still have no idea what love means. And even after all the changes I've made in myself. No matter how much I love who I am and the woman I've become. No matter how amazing my friends are. No matter how little of a fuck I give about what people think of me. No matter how much I fight the "need" to love and be loved. It remains the one thing I struggle with the most. In all my changes, in all my research, love is the only thing I feel like I "need." I've worked really hard to overcome the societal train. I am completely and unmercifully me and yet no matter how hard I fight it, I still feel like I need someone else. I have attempted to convince myself that my friends are enough to fill this void. But the truth is, they aren't. Love is a conundrum that I have yet to figure out. But, maybe the Beatles were right. Maybe love, really is, all you "need."