Single Valentine

I grew up in the South which has more traditional views, and women often get married young. Some families in my circle had an opinion that a marriage proposal should be soon after a high school diploma. So while my gal peers got a husband, kid(s), and the white picket fence after high school, I got 3 degrees, loan debt, and adult braces. Even while I sit here as a single gal writing this post with a box of Valentine’s Russell Stover Chocolates I bought myself, I rebel against the idea that I’m a bird that never flew. I am on mission; a mission to become to the best version of myself.

February rings songs of love and tales of happily ever after. The reflections of real life love stories seem to be talked about most for Valentine’s Day. I see and read these stories on social media and in the world around. Somehow those who do not have a significant other this time of year, are collectively lumped together to celebrate Single Awareness Day. It is a humorous gesture in theory but exhausting in context to think of another Valentine’s alone and strategies to someone fix that.

That’s the problem. Singlehood has somehow become a word that is treated like a disease that is only cured with finding “the one”. Singlehood is also called a state or a period of life when someone is incomplete in life without a partner. Those are not my original theories but rather the rhetoric that has been drilled at times by society and more personally the circle I grew up in. But the theory I chose to subscribe to, forever impacted my life, “Becoming is more important than uniting”.

Louie Giglio, a profound speaker who most often speaks to young adults, said “The key to life is to become someone more than it is to find somebody.” He went on to say becoming Miss or Mr. Right is more important than finding Miss or Mr. Right. This message is a drastically different message than a lot of young people like myself have been given and yes particularly single people. Singlehood should not be a fixation on the state of singleness but should be championed as a season of becoming the best version of oneself.

I struggle with the idea that when one gets married, it means one is finally complete. Instead, I believe that you should be complete in yourself first before uniting. Yes, I believe a wonderful partner can complement and add to ones’ life. Yes, we are all imperfect people and that special partner will accept their loved ones flaws. But what good is it to find someone and to not be someone who is whole? Being the best version of yourself does not mean perfection, it means that one has come to peace with who they are and they are striving to be a better person every day. That is beautiful life story.

The life story of becoming the best version of yourself is not just for self-improvement but to better give back with love to the world around. The amazing point is that this story doesn’t have to stop when one becomes married because it is a life story.

A life story of becoming a great someone is one that can keep being written and talked about even beyond one’s life.

Singlehood is a season without a love story, but not void of a beautiful life story.

Life is full of seasons that come and go and we all truly have different paths and timings. But a life story is a journey that should be most prioritized with becoming the best version of yourself even more so than uniting with somebody. Becoming is more important than uniting.

I challenge myself to the mission of becoming. I am not desperate to find someone but desperate to be a great someone. I am strengthened by every challenge I face that shapes me into a better person. I am empowered in every moment I give back to someone else. I am on a mission to become the best version of myself. If a love story happens in my life fine, but if not, I am not worried. I am more interested in my life story of becoming than a love story of uniting. I am on a mission to become everything God wants me to be.

❤ Follow the gorgeous Naomi Noel