How I Fell in Love With Myself (and you can too)

I used to date as though my life depended on it.

Sometimes I went on several dates a week.

I’d get dressed up, but not too. I’d put on make-up, but not too much.

I’d try to look like myself, but not too much.

“Too much” was the moving bar I tried to stay below.

The problem with trying to not be “too much” is that it is a capricious mark, dependent entirely on what the other person deems “just right.”

I so badly wanted to be just right.

At some point in early adolescence, I became aware of the bar of too-muchness.

Before that, around the golden age of 10, I had wings. I dreamed and flew over the moon and the sun and back again, brimming with wonder and possibility.

But somewhere along one of those flights, society delivered the message to fold my wings in, keep my head down and ultimately dim my light.

Here’s the thing about the light of your soul: You cannot dim your light one place and shine it brightly in others. If you can’t show up fully everywhere, you are not showing up fully anywhere.

Dating highlighted this impossible posture I was trying to achieve: of being authentic, but not being too much.

More than a couple of men called me “deep.” I knew this wasn’t exactly a compliment, as it was said with the tone of, “Whoa, you’re deep.” Read: “You’re too much.”

My 20-something son was living with me at the time and he was dating too. One day, I shared this phenomena with him.

“Men keep calling me deep,” I said, bewildered.

“Oh, you are deep, mom.”

“How? I’m trying to stay as surface as possible. I’m just talking about the weather. If that’s deep, I can’t imagine what they’re think if I actually told them what was on my mind.”

I did that once. I date was pressing me to “read” him after I told him that I could be intuitive. “Read me! C’mon, let’s see.” I told him it wasn’t like that, I wasn’t a psychic. “Do it. Read me.”

So I looked out the window for a moment and turned back to him. I told him what I saw in him, his deep fear of being hurt, a bit about his past that has created that fear. His face grew serious. He stopped talking for the first time that evening. He sat back in his chair.

“Should I go on?” I asked as pleasantly as I could.

“No,” he said. “That’s enough.” He did not call me for a second date.

“It’s like your soul reaches out and touches their soul. It doesn’t matter what you’re talking about. Not everyone is ready for that.”

It was at that moment, through the eyes of my son, that I saw the great cost of dimming my light.

First of all, it didn’t work. No matter how hard I tried, light seeped out around all the cracks of the facade I was working so hard to present. All my yearning to be loved was suffocating who I really was meant to be in this world.

Ultimately, it was keeping at bay those who were ready to have their souls touched by mine.

I am here to touch people’s souls. That is a big proclamation. It is also true.

As I began to open the shutters of my own heart, letting out the light, I also began to receive the light of others.

Fear about what others want me to be flew away and burned up in the sun.

I unfolded my wings, opened my throat and began to sing my little song that had been held captive by the painful yearning to be “just right.”

I stopped dating like my life depended on it. I began cooking again. Aromatic meals, inspired by chefs all over the world. I made meals for two, or four, lovingly packaging the leftovers and freezing them to feed myself another day.

I sat by my fireplace and wrote and, for the first time since I was 10, fell in love with my own company. This is how I became Just Right.