Acknowledging Your Personal Growth

Today's lesson: Realizing the growth you've made as an individual, and not fearing the acceptance of it. 

As a little "catch me up" and starter to my story, there is a new man in my life.  Avoiding all the hairy details, he is a regular customer at Ace and we've been talking for some time now and just recently exchanged numbers to go out on a date sometime.  Now...keeping in mind the Arianne that most people knew & hated, I used to jump both feet into the pool on the chance that any guy was interested in me.  Do everything in my power to find him, hook him and keep him.  

Terrible way of living girls!  You want a man to stay in your life because he genuinely loves you, not because you can afford to buy him.   

After hanging out once, talking for a while, and getting to know more about him I've come to the conclusion that I like him.  How much yet, I'm not sure, but I know that as a person making him a piece of my life seems like a good decision.  I'm still sort of lacking in the friends department here in Greeley, so there is nothing wrong with making a new friend.  Talk has come up about possibly dating someday, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested, but for the first time in my entire life...I, Arianne Robertson, set boundaries right away.  I told him I'm nobody's girlfriend, that is an earned right.  He laughed and said he'd be glad to earn that respect someday.  


The story + the lesson = Where I am today... In my past, I've made the mistake of throwing myself into relationships...being someone's girlfriend made my life seem close to perfect - even if I wasn't being respected.  *Another note for girls: if you aren't being respected in your relationship, it may not seem like it, but being single is going to take you down a much happier path than being disrespected everyday.  I told this man right away that I am a woman who deserves nothing less than respect on every area of my life.  I followed it up with "if that's not okay with you, feel free to walk."  Maybe he's a good guy after all, because he thought it was great that I would respect myself that much to stick to my plan.  


So...my personal growth has taken me from very low and dark valleys in my life, all the way back up to a beautiful place in my life where I feel like I am wonderful, I deserve incredible things, and nothing/no one is going to keep me from getting where I want to be in life.  Today, I accept the growth I've made as my own progress, another brick in my path, and another very important life lesson I can consider learned.  


Now...time to grow in the world of Psychology 101.  Have a wonderful evening blogger world!


Signing off,


Arianne Elizabeth