Life is short, be with someone who is real

Life is so short, it is shorter than I am. Life is so short, it sucks at basketball, but tries, because it’s a try-hard. Life is so short, it can’t even ride the rollercoasters at Valley fair.

Okay, that’s all I got. (I was trying to diss life, haha).

But, for real, life is so short. Like, if I could go back to when I was four-years-old running back and forth between my grandma and grandpa’s house to my house (we lived close) without a care in the world, I would. In a heartbeat. It was a much simpler time, to say the least. (Yeah, I probably could have gotten run over by a car if I wasn’t careful, but I didn’t have a care in the world). The only things I cared about was eating candy for supper and pushing my bedtime back further and further.

Now the world is real. It is right at our door-step, and it is terrifying, if you think about it. There is so much bad in the world (a lot of good, sure, but a lot of bad, too).

Life is too short to be unhappy in a relationship. Life is too short to be pushed around by someone. Life is too short to be wishing that you were prettier or smarter or more stylish or skinnier or taller. Life is too short to be spent on petty stuff like I wish I was ___________.

If you want to change something about yourself, and it’s positive and healthy, go for it. You do you, man. But if it cannot be changed, don’t even think about it. Life was better when we didn’t care what we wore (or if we wore anything), didn’t care who liked us, didn’t care if our hair was uneven, or our socks didn’t match. Don’t sweat the small stuff. I have to face it, I am not going to grow anymore. I used to dream that if I could go back and “do it over,” I would pour my heart and soul into playing basketball. I would play so well that I would try to get a full-ride scholarship to the University of Iowa and play for the Hawkeyes just because my dad likes them. I would try to make sure that he got free tickets to every game. But, I’m never going to be that good, and I’m certainly never going to grow enough to not get blocked every time I try to shoot. Or I used to dream that I would put on a nice outfit and go to my first day at a new school and cute guy would run into something because he was looking at me instead of watching where he was going. Of course we would end up together, because life is a fairytale, right? No, it’s not. I’m not that pretty, and guys don’t pay that much attention to me. But, that’s okay. I like who I am, and I hope that everyone can get to the point where he or she can say things like, “My hair is super unruly, and I love it,” or, “I can’t grow a beard at all, but that’s just fine with me,” or, “I exercise the right amount, I can’t help that my metabolism is slow, at least I can use my tummy as a shelf, that’s less work for me, I like that,” etc.

Everyone has something about themselves that he or she doesn’t like. We are so easy to pick out the little things about ourselves that no one even notices, or if people notice, they don’t care because they probably have something like that going on with their whatever too.

Find out who you are, and stick with it. In the end God loves you just the way you are, and my guess is that there are plenty of people in your life that do too.

Be with someone who sees all the things that you think are flaws, but counts them as blessings in his or her life. “Oh, yeah, he has a tummy, but that just means that he supports us well enough to fill our tummies everyday.” “Oh, that’s no big deal that she is clumsy, I like picking up after her.” “I like the way that his hair is thinning, it makes him look more mature.” Etc.

“Be with someone who sees all the things that you think are flaws, but counts them as blessings in his or her life.”

If you have to drop hints about things that you want him/her to do/be (change), chances are he/she isn’t for you. If you have to lead the relationship because he’s not up to your pace, chances are he’s not for you. The list goes on. Now, who am I to judge, right? I don’t know relationships, remember. But I do know, that if you don’t know who you are as a person, it will be impossible to find what you are looking for in a partner.

“If you don’t know who you are as a person, it will be impossible to find what you are looking for in a partner.”

Sometimes relationships aren’t meant to work out because they teach you about something or bring you closer to God somehow, someway, even when we hate it and count it as a failure. (I don’t think any relationship that doesn’t work is a “failed relationship.” Every relationship teaches you something new everyday. That’s a win in my book). Sometimes relationships fizzle out, but rejoin again in the future. Sometimes relationships last a long time, unhappily or happily. Timing is weird, relationships are weird, and life is weird.

Life is weird. Life is short. Be with the right one through it all. Be with someone who is real, and who treats you real.