How It Feels to Find Yourself

When You Become Whole on Your Own

I spent most of my twenties waiting for someone else to put me together: to tell me I was good enough, to make me less afraid, to teach me what I should value most. I weighed other people’s opinions more than my own due to insecurity and a lack of self-trust, which meant the decisions I made were based on someone else’s ideas of who I should be. What I most longed for was a sense of wholeness, but I looked for it in the wrong place: somewhere outside myself. My life began coming together when I realized that the only person responsible for my happiness . . . is me. I stopped waiting for someone else to give me permission and began living the life I wanted. I traveled alone because I wanted to see the world. I painted because I felt there was an artist inside me. I reached out to strangers and asked if they wanted to spend time together. I nurtured these new connections and received the gift of incredible friendship in return. I said yes to opportunities that scared me and became more confident each time I accomplished something I never thought I would. Becoming whole is an ongoing process—something you will achieve only to find that once again, it’s all come undone. Life stretches to accommodate your vision of it, and what I dreamt of was a life bursting with a variety of experiences and environments. My life now reflects the one I dreamt of: not one without failure or sadness, but one that has a sense of fullness— because there is meaning stitched through every experience.