Miss Independent

Proof that compliments are so important: when it comes to past compliments, I have IMMACULATE memory. Do you remember Bebo? The social-media site before Facebook and Myspace came to town? Well, I can still clearly remember my first boyfriend posting the lyrics to Ne-yo’s She Got Her Own on his Bebo profile for me. Looking back, I think he only liked that I had a job because it meant he didn’t have to pay for his bubble tea, but regardless of his intentions that gesture stuck with me.

Ten years later, I don’t always enjoy being Miss Independent but when I do, I love celebrating me.

My alone feels so good, I’ll only have you if you’re sweeter than my solitude. (Warsan Shire)

Being single used to mean that nobody wanted you. Now it means you’re pretty sexy and you’re taking your time deciding how you want your life to be and who you want to spend it with. (Sex and the City)

How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself. (Anais Nin)

Discover why you’re important, then refuse to settle for anyone who doesn’t completely agree. (Fisher Amelie)
When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings. (Elizabeth Gilbert)

(Shout-out to Haifa, my beautiful 11 year old cousin for letting me read one of her many young-adult novels)

I am a lover without a lover. I am lovely and lonely and I belong deeply to myself.
(Warsan Shire)