For most of my life, back to my earliest memory, I gained validation from the opposite sex. Even now that I am fully enlightened, I sometimes still do. Bad, I know. Don't sue me. There is not a one of us that is not a work in progress.
My earliest memory of having a crush on a boy goes all the way back to the age of five. I should say, not a crush on a specific boy, but the idea of boys in general. I lived in Oklahoma City, where I was born, at the time. Our school's playground had these two huge, concrete walls and we invented a game one day. Well, we thought we invented it, but it had probably been passed down from class to class every year. If we could run from one wall to the other, during recess, without being touched, we would not be kissed. I ran slowly, on purpose. This is when my boy-craziness took off. Sadly, it never landed.
I can tell story after story of love and lust, both unrequited and two-sided. I have been a Taylor Swift fan for many, many years. I remember someone saying, I think it was one of my children, that there was no way someone her age could have had so many loves, so many broken hearts. I looked at them and said, "Oh yeah, there is. I get it. I did." And it's true. Been there, done that.
To say that I found my self-worth from the opposite sex at a very early age is an understatement. Mind you, I was never, ever, one of those women who used my looks to get whatever I wanted, even though I was told, on countless occasions, that I could do that very thing. I didn't go to bars, like other women I knew, trying to get free drinks or meals. My needs went way deeper than that.
If there is one thing I have never been, it is superficial. I wear my heart on my sleeve and all I have ever truly desired is to be loved, to be known and to have someone "get me." Isn't that what we all want?
This deep-seated insecurity runs deep. I am unsure where it comes from, though I have a few theories. But, partially, it is trying to fill the God-shaped void that I believe exists in all of us. If God doesn't fill it, by gum, we will fill it with something. Relationships, shopping, alcohol, drugs, gambling, Starbucks. There are as many types of addictions as there are people.
I can pinpoint another reason, but I won't do it right here, right now. And that really doesn't even matter. What matters is the realization that trying to get my self-worth or attention from anything other than God is a mistake.
As is the case with most women, we want our emotional needs met first. Then we are willing to go to the physical. I was always acutely aware that men wanted the physical and were not so concerned with the emotional. At least this was true of many of the men (or boys) I encountered, starting in high school. Sex, therefore, was not something I gave freely. But emotions? It was no holds barred in that area, to the very detriment of my soul. I gave my heart away as if it were a piece of candy sold at the five and dime.
And kisses? Those too. I remember, at one point, keeping a list of all the guys I had kissed. At some point, I stopped counting, but that was before I was even 20 and the list had over 250 names on it. In my warped mind, I wore this like a badge of honor.
I fell too hard, too fast, more times than I can count. I thought that attention meant I was loved. I made so many mistakes, thinking lust was love. And that words whispered in the dark meant that I was someone, somebody. Oh, it took me oh, so long to figure out this was a lie from the pit of hell.
This wrong thinking carried into my adulthood. Thankfully, it ceased having its power over me about five years or so ago. I saw what a dead-end it was, all this attention based on how I looked. But to get there, I had to sink to the depths. Sadly, I didn't go there alone; I took others there with me. Once there, my life became a bit more boring, more mundane, much like many lives are. I felt less excitement in my life, on one hand, but much more grown up and adult and mature on the other. No longer would I accept the lie that attention from men was what I needed to feel fully alive. I already had everything I needed.
But it is like anything else in life that needs to go, you must come to the realization on your own. No one can tell you the truth before you see it for yourself. And I did. I finally saw how meaningless it all was. The only validation worth anything is God's.
He loves me, exactly how I am. When He looks at me, He sees a flawless, wonderful creature made in His image. I don't have to do anything to gain His love. He was there, all the time, waiting for me to wake up.
I still struggle, though. I love my husband deeply and I long to have him think I am amazing, beautiful, the end all and be all. But I am realistic and honest with myself. I know, most days, that is not the case. He loves me, but he doesn't exist to love me. He doesn't compliment me every time I come downstairs, looking the best I have looked (I think) in a week. He doesn't make me feel special every single minute of the day. But I shouldn't need this, shouldn't want it. At some point it is time to grow the heck up right?
I must keep going back to God. Every. Single. Time. So, like I said in the beginning of this essay, I get my validation from the opposite sex. But this time it is God himself, Jesus in the flesh, who is the only One truly worthy of me.
And what more could I want? He is, after all, the perfect man.