I’m learning how to live with myself

Saying that I am learning everything by myself would be selfish, because it means I don’t give enough credit to the people who have come into my life—both those who still stay and those who have already left. Because they existed (to me) for a reason. Or for a lesson. Anyway, I wouldn’t learn anything if it weren’t for them. If I didn’t have people to interact with.

Then I realized. I have been depending a lot on people to “experience” something. Boyfriends, particularly. I am constantly longing for a partner. I have been very dependent to the point I feel like I could not live without one. Never have I been single for a year since I was… 15? This feels unhealthy to me now, although I don’t know if there are any specific rules about it. Even when I don’t have a boyfriend, I always have someone close, someone, that I’m interested romantically with, to talk to.

I now have learned that I can’t do that anymore. Why? Here’s why.

1. I have one great love in my life (I’m only 22 years old, going 23 this year, but this should not invalidate my point). Or I should say that I had. Some internal problems within my family and me broke that relationship. However, he remains important to me. He remains loved. He is the standard, and I really could not find someone like him anymore.
2. My previous point is just another proof of why I can’t keep having boyfriends. I still love him, so that will be unfair to my next partner. And I keep comparing anyone I’m close to with him. That is unhealthy and I should not do that. But maybe I keep doing that because I never have the time to mend.
3. I feel like I’m losing myself. I stay unhealthy when I’m in a relationship in a way that I always tried to live up to their standards of a perfect partner to the point I don’t recognize myself anymore. Now I have an identity crisis. Who am I? What do I want? What do I want to be, now that I don’t want to be someone’s perfect partner anymore?
4. Three points are enough—I think—because the third one is taking up too much of me.

Now, I’m taking baby steps to change. Here’s what I have been doing so far:

1. I learned how to say no. When someone asks me to do something that I don’t feel comfortable doing, I say no. When I know that I am incapable of doing that as of now, I say no. It felt guilty at first, but now it makes me feel a bit powerful. I just feel like this is how I try to start setting my own boundaries.
2. I state my preference. Previously, I waited for the other party (particularly my partner) to tell me their preferences and I just said, “oh, I like that too!” while I had absolutely no idea about it, or I hated it. The man that I love taught me about this. He did not lecture me, but he let me tell him my preferences and when his were different from mine, he let me know that it was completely okay. And eventually, I became okay too. Now I’m applying that to everyone I meet. I embrace my preferences.
3. I stopped waiting for certainty and I stopped fighting for it—only when I know that the other party does not even put in the effort. I have been loved once and now I know how it feels like, so I am not settling for less. I believe that if someone wants to be with me, he will not make it complicated or confusing. He lets me know. Because that’s what I do too. When I like someone, I let them know (even if things don’t go my way eventually). I won’t accept being treated lesser than that.
4. Now I realize that I’m babbling.

The thing is, I write this not for everyone to read, but for me to feel “relieved” because I could get this in writing and get it out of my chest.

(Also, I may have intentionally written this to confess my true love to my ex, but let’s pretend I did not just write that).

Anyways. I don’t think I have learned how to live with myself when I keep going back to the “what-ifs” between him and me. So this title is a fraud. Or I hope not. Maybe someday I’ll stop asking the “what-ifs”.