If she believes, then I believe.

I feel like shower time is when I do my best thinking. It's my reflection time. It's when I look back, ponder life and take stock of all the progress I've made. I love it. Not only are you getting clean in a literal sense, but it's almost like your mind, your psyche is getting a scrub down. By walking down memory lane, you are also recognizing what is truly important in life and it allows you to see how far you've come. It also helps you let go of things, wash them down the drain (if you will). All those things take place in a shower. It's like a counseling session, but with yourself. It's both free and you don't have to wear clothes to it, so, added bonus. It's weird how one little thing makes you think of something else, which takes you down this one path and before you know it you're unraveling the mysteries of your soul... or something like that. I was reading some human story piece on someone's life and some major life struggle they had and it made me think of the end of 2005. I was living in Colorado and I had gone to this little weekend retreat with this church and it was out in the woods. The coolest part of the story (unrelated to what I'm talking about here), is that we went to bed with a dry ground and woke up the next morning to a literal Narnia picture. I'm serious. This Texas girl had never seen so much snow in her life. And in the woods like that, it was definitely Narnia-esque. It was one of the coolest moments of my life. But during that retreat we were talking about laying whatever constant struggle we had at the foot of the cross. I don't entirely remember what we did with the little pieces of paper where we wrote that down and maybe that wasn't entirely the lesson, but it was 10 years ago so I'm a little foggy on the details. All I remember is at the age of 24, 3 years past when all my college friends had gotten married and I was already feeling like some old spinster (I know! At twenty-freaking-four!) I wrote down "singleness." It's always been my biggest struggle. Always. I love being in love, it may have only been 2 times and it may not have ended in the best most amicable of ways, but I love it. I hate singleness. I've learned to live with it AND I've learned to choose happiness and I've found many many great things about it, but yeah I still hate it. Whether or not you want to argue that being in a relationship is way harder than being alone, I'm not interested in the debate. They're both hard and let's just agree to disagree. Some people are made to be alone and deep down they know that and maybe that's why they pick people not right for them or have one-night stands, I don't know, I'm not their therapist. But that day in 2005 I felt with certainty that my "cross to bear" (piggy backing on the lesson) was Singleness. With a capital S. I felt like I knew even at 24, that it would be a life long struggle. Even if I didn't really take the time to delve into what that looked like or truly accepted it at the time; I just felt it and probably ignored it and burned that paper and moved on with my life, which involved dating a guy less than a year later. But anyways. I was thinking back on that moment and how it still kind of "haunts" me today. It has kind of lead my life, in a way. It's like the Scarlet letter. It's defining me. Christie, the single girl. It's my title and I don't want it. But I don't think most people want their "cross they bear." They don't want those weight problems, financial problems, job problems, relationship problems, health problems. They don't want it, but it follows them their whole life. I'm sure things get better for a lot of people, maybe temporarily or maybe not, but I think it's still there. It's never fully gone. I thought about how, while I know my friends want me to be happy and "hope" that I meet someone someday; my best friend is the only one (who also coincidentally came from 2005) that truly BELIEVES that I will meet someone, fall in love and have that life I've always dreamed of, which is simply just being loved by another human being in that way. I thought about how if one day she came to me and said "well, you have a great life so even if it doesn't happen, you always have us and we love you and you'll continue to enjoy your life and have fun," I would literally plummet into the darkest pit and never come out. Wait a second. You're thinking, did I misread the wonderfully beautiful sentiment I pretended she said? No. No you didn't. It's just, if she stopped believing that there was someone out there for me, then I would most definitely not be able to believe. I already pretty much don't; but her belief bumps me up to about a 2% chance and that is way better than 0. All belief needs is a sliver, a 1% chance. It doesn't need much. It just needs one bar to connect that call. I love a lot of things about my best friend, but her faith FOR me, takes the cake. Just the thought of her "giving up" on that life for me one day, made me burst into tears in the shower and I couldn't stop for some time. It's a good thing the water could wash it all away. It would be like telling a 3 year old that Santa doesn't exist. They haven't even figured it out on their own yet, they're still young and innocent. It would crush their little hearts. I need her to believe for me. Because I can't. I can't by myself. She keeps saying she "knows" there's got to be someone out there. Even if it's not literally possible for her to know, I take that the same way as (again a young child) would believe their mom and dad when they tell them that Santa does exist. The proof is in the half-eaten cookies. There is NO way mom and dad could've eaten them. That doesn't even make sense. The child believes because their parents believe. I may not be as gullible as a child, due to life experience, but I believe that my BFF truly believes that I will find my love, it just hasn't happened... yet. I am so happy that I met her and that she stuck around in my life. Not just stuck around, but grew and developed a friendship through life changes that in most cases would have caused the friendship to dwindle or cease to exist. That's a powerful friendship, and she's a powerful friend. So maybe she does know something I don't know ;o)