When I was in college I was in an all women’s chorus for all four years. Hands down, best part of my college experience.

My senior year (cough 2006-2007 cough) I had the privilege and honor of being the president of that beautiful group of women. One of my many jobs that year was that I was in charge of the truck crew- which just meant at concert we unloading and loaded the equipment and then other teams set them up.

The largest pieces of equipment we had were the risers. They were clunky and awkward and heavy. But, they were on wheels and it really wasn’t that hard.

Sometimes, we would have combined events with the concert choir and the orchestra and all the teams for all different ensembles would work together. Now, our choir didn’t have a vice president which was essentially the position that handled set-up, so I being the president, would deal with set up for our choir.

And the concert choir VP Johnny Rocha and I would ALWAYS argue about the fact that he didn’t need us to help with the risers. That the guys had it. (He and I went head to head a lot but that’s another story).

And if anyone knows me, you know that, that is a not a thing that I do well with, because I am highly capable of doing it myself.

I thought of this story today because, yesterday in discussing our upcoming move, I told my friend Benjamin that I might ditch my green chair. It’s so great, but it’s heavy and cumbersome and I don’t necessarily want to haul it up stairs.

He looked at me like I was ridiculous and said, “You know Shawn and I are going to move it up the stairs. It wouldn’t be you”.

(And I’m sure when he reads this he is going to know that I was inwardly- he’ll say outwardly-seething.)

Because, I am a strong independent woman. I can move my own chair up the damn stairs.

Now, I am grateful that I have a really good group of guys  (and gals) in my life. I am so lucky that I have people who watch my back, who don’t think twice about helping me with something, who would fight for me and who make sure I get home safe and that are going to move my cumbersome heavy green chair up the stairs to my bedroom.

But spoiler alert: there might be a day where there isn’t someone to make sure I get home safe, or I might carry a heavy green chair into a new house by myself. OK I know that like honestly in reality this isn’t true because I have an amazing community of humans, but what I’m trying to say is that I might be alone one day in an empty house and be a little more island-y while my friends go home to their families and their own homes.

But, in all of my talk of identity and figuring out my life right now and where I want to go and what I need to do, I am very much coming to terms with the fact that I only feel lonely sometimes and that I can deal with that.

I think we don’t talk enough about the fact that it’s ok to be ok being single. I had to scroll back into 2017 on my blog to find the last blog I wrote on this topic (Don’t call my singleness brave).

I think I don’t like to talk about it because it’s just another thing that the world says I haven’t accomplished. It’s just another thing that says I haven’t reached where I need to be. Now, not that I believe any of that, BUT when someone is yelling at you eventually words are going to break through.

And I’ve reached the point where I’m getting sick of the narrative that is being written about this topic. Especially in regards to single women.

WE ARE NOT LESS THAN IF WE DON’T HAVE A RING.

Whoops, sorry. Let’s do that again:
We are not less than if we don’t have a ring.

Does it always feel good?
Nope.
Does saying “no, I’ll take a separate check” feel like a spotlight is on you?
Yep.
But are we going to be ok?

Hell yah.

I don’t know why I felt so inclined to say these words today. I don’t know if I’m more riled up than not, or if probably more likely, I’m feeling some feels about not being enough based on this topic.
Because, those feelings? They’re normal. It would be weird if I had no emotions in this area of life as I’m mostly surrounded by couples and I’ve been in more weddings than your average human.

I want you to know this about getting out into the dating scene or not. It’s not about not “putting yourself out there”.

It’s not about listening to one story after another after another of people who “stopped looking and then found who they are married too”.

It’s about being who you are.

If who you are is someone who just wants to not be single, I’d encourage to look for the things you are.

If you are someone who hides being some fear, (cough me cough), I encourage you to keep speaking out against the things that battle inside of you and settle into yourself.

If you don’t care but other people care for you- screw them (with kindness obviously).

I want you to know that obviously I’m not writing this from a place of typing this out with a diamond ring on my finger saying “Be enough for yourself, don’t mind me getting blinded by my sparkle”.

I’m writing this from a place of learning to be enough for myself and speaking out that I may have emotions and feelings but that’s what makes me human.

I want you to know, that if you are a single human reading this (or really, honestly any human in any part of life), that you’re enough for yourself. 100%. You are enough for the rest of your life, and you are enough for your friends without another human attached to you. You are enough for the child you might want to adopt and the business you might want to start and the house you want to buy.

You’re enough.

End of story.