We Don't Need Lids

I was talking to some friends over Facetime the other day. While we were chatting, one of my friends nonchalantly opened up the Instagram app on her phone. She commented that the first photo that came up on her feed was one of an ex-boyfriend of hers with his new fiancee. She visibly flinched a little, then tried to laugh it off. This prompted one of the people on the line to chime in with “Don’t worry, your pot will find its lid one day!”

I’m sorry… what?

This particular “pot” almost flew off the handle at that comment, but instead I remained silent. Afterwards, as I sat quietly seething in my chair, I tried to understand why I was so bothered by this metaphor. By now, I know myself well enough to recognize that when that knee-jerk anger response is triggered in my brain, it’s a sign that a boundary of mine has been crossed. In this case, this boundary was my belief that a person’s inherent value is not dependent upon their relationship status. To be clear, the person on the other end of the line probably wasn’t suggesting that my friend was somehow “incomplete” or “unwhole” as she was. They probably weren’t trying to say that she would never be able to reach her full potential, or at the very least function properly, without having someone else in her life to fulfill her.

Like many people, I’ve been single and I’ve been in relationships. I have friends who are married, friends who are single, friends who are in relationships, and even friends who are in “situationships,” as they call them. I know that I want to get married at some point, but there have been times when I’ve struggled with the notion of making a serious commitment to someone else at this point in my life. Each year of my twenties has brought with it so much growth and change, and with every new birthday I feel as though I’ve ended up becoming a completely different person than the one that I was the year before.

Now I’ll tell you something that women (especially women in their mid-to-late-twenties) aren’t supposed to say: Sometimes, I just really like being alone. I definitely wasn’t always this way; I’ve had to learn to like spending time with just myself. Now that I’ve grown accustomed to my own company though, I find myself much less lonely, even when I’m not in the presence of others. For the record, I also find myself absolutely hilarious and endlessly fascinating (much more so than other people do, I’m sure), so that doesn’t hurt. But all jokes aside, in this very digital and always-connected age, I don’t think enough people spend enough time alone with themselves. Here’s an important question to consider: If you don’t enjoy spending time alone with yourself, how can you ever expect someone else to want to spend time alone with you?

I’m going to take a slight detour here for a minute and share with you a piece of wisdom that was passed down to me from my father. When I was growing up, my dad used to tell me that the only thing that the world could never take away from me was my education. That’s an intimidating thing for a child to hear, so it has stuck with me for my whole life. He’s not wrong, but I think it’s worth expanding on a little; the only thing that the world can never take away from you is you. You are the only person who you are guaranteed to wake up with every single day for the rest of your life. You are the only person who will be there for every single setback and every single victory, start to finish, each step of the way. You are the only asset that’s always going to be worth investing in. It’s worth doing the work on yourself, because you’re never going to be disappointed in the outcome. Listen, there's a reason that self-love, self-respect, and self-worth all start with the word “self;” you cannot find them in anyone else.

So no, I’ll pass on a lid. But I’ll keep an open mind should I come across a nice-looking spoon.