A choice to not be "that girl"...

Other than nights where I haven’t slept at all, I am pretty sure tonight is the worst night’s sleep I have ever had.

It is 2:30 am and I am just laying here awake. I swore I wouldn’t look at my phone. I have tried reading. I tried a crossword. Nothing. I feel the exhaustion, but as soon as I start to fall asleep, I wake up abruptly. Ugh, how annoying.

So I thought, maybe I would write here instead of just journaling. There are a lot of things racing through my mind that I could write about, so I drafted a few blogs based on my journaling lately. But I decided to publish this one first.

Wednesday is Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday. I was looking at my calendar tonight, and wow, Wednesday is a doozy.

I don’t love Valentine’s Day. Don’t get me wrong, I love LOVE, but I don’t love the Hallmark holiday, I just like the intentional component to celebrating all relationships that grow in loving through all things. I also don’t love chocolate, and there is way too much chocolate on Valentine’s Day.

I love Lent. A season of pause and reflection, to be reminded that we are created with love and intention in His image. To remember what Jesus did for us. And to reflect on how love conquered all. And then there is the knowing that the Almighty Love is what forgives our sins, and Lent is a time to repent and shine in humility as we walk in our journey to know ourselves better through focusing on Him.

Wednesday, we get to combine those two days.  

As I lay awake thinking about this, and also just reflecting on my weekend, I am thinking back to a conversation I had with a friend over coffee. We were talking about life, friendships, relationships, and the topic of who we turn to and who turns to us came up. Couple that with Ashley’s sermon on community this weekend, and there is a lot on my mind about my views on support and how I want to show up to those in my life, or how I have in the past.

I could try to tell this story vaguely. But I think I am just going to tell it like my friend and I discussed it over coffee this weekend. My hope is that if I publish this, maybe others will consider where they stand on it too, especially in this season of love and pause, and make the choice to be more than “that girl” or “that guy”.

I used to be the girl who wanted to be available to everyone. Text me, call me, knock on my door. I always wanted to be there for anyone, so that no one ever felt alone. As I enter my 30th year though, I have learned some hard lessons about being that girl. The hardest being, you can’t always be there. When I was in high school, and probably the first year of college, there were a number of times I was the girl that guy friends would turn to when they had relationship problems. I loved being needed by them in those moments, but then I found that I turned to them when I had mine. Samesy with my lady friends, they had their gossip and drama… I allowed myself to be dragged in (but I did some dragging too). There were times I even initiated being needed, because I was lost and needing a sense of purpose. Or maybe it was because I had other things going on in life, where I felt unseen and so I coped with my need for being seen by trying to be "that girl" Haha, this is easy to write now. Trust me, I did not realize what I was doing at the time.

But now that I’m 30 (see how a new decade makes me want to pretend I am old and wise, ;))…

No really, now that I have been through this stuff way too many times, it feels so much better to not be that girl. I have my moments where I probably listen too long or maybe talk when I shouldn’t (I’m not perfect), but when I was 24, my wise God mama advised me to be brave and approach people directly, to stop seeking emotional support where I shouldn’t or choosing to be the emotional support of someone who needed to be brave in their own journey, and to choose to deeply love my own relationships and respect others. I admit, it is not always easy because I never want to see someone alone or struggling, but it has always been worth it. Just to be clear, I still choose to show up as a friend, but in every situation and relationship, I have to intentionally evaluate whether truly I am the one they should be seeking in that moment, and if I am not, being brave in supporting them to have the hard/brave/confident conversations. When I am not great at this, I kick myself. But I truly want what is best for each and every person in my life and so I keep trying.

I never thought of it as disrespectful to be that girl, until I started noticing relationships around me fall apart because of intimate connections caused by people wanting and/or allowing themselves to be “that girl/guy”. Not physically intimate, but emotionally intimate. There was one relationship in particular that I so deeply admired, and when I was 25 and going through hard life stuff on my own (that was the year I lost my mom), I watched that relationship explode in front of my eyes because one party chose to turn to someone that wasn’t their person for support on a hard life topic. Emotional intimacy grew, and the power couple I once knew imploded. That emotional intimacy led to temptation, to abandonment, and the people that loved each other, left each other. Because one of them chose to not continuing to choose their person.

I guess where I am going with this. Whether you are a man or woman, choose to be the woman/man who encourages your friends and community to go back to their person or their faith. Be a person who reminds those who need support that love does conquer all, it is how we are designed, and to seek love with the person you are struggling with, not “the girl/guy”. And in this season of love, repenting, and pause, if you are battling that feeling of being “that girl/guy” turn to your people, and be reminded that you don’t need to be that for others in order to see the love you were created in and for.  

Oh, may your Valentine's Day/Ash Wednesday be a purposeful start to this Lent season.