It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

I just realized something. Like, I really just realized this as I sat here checking my email and eating my sandwich and thinking back over the events of the last 48 hours, and I felt like it was such a good realization that I couldn’t go another minute without blogging about it.

Maybe it’s not profound. Maybe you’ve thought of it before. But I’m not sure I’ve really ever thought about it in this context, and honestly, on a Monday, any realization seems like a good one.

So, my realization: People always talk about how when two people are perfect for each other, they make each other better people, and personally, I’ve always thought this to be quite romantic sounding. However, I just realized that behind all of those rosy words lies something far less rosy because allowing someone to make you into a better person is actually quite possibly the most painful process in the entire world.

Let me explain.

When you are single, you can do what you want, when you want, with whoever you want. Your actions, for the most part, do not drastically affect anyone (outside of your roommate or your cube mate, and who really cares about them anyway?) When you’re single, you can be rude, gossipy, judgmental, jealous, angry, negative and a general pain in the butt, and there’s no pressure to be anything else.

But all of that changes when you get in a relationship. Suddenly, when you meet someone you care about, your actions begin to affect someone else, and that someone else happens to be the person you love and want to spend your life with. Suddenly, that jealous streak/worrisome nature/bossy tendency/fill-in-your-vice-here starts to drive a wedge between you and your beloved, and not long after, you find yourself facing The Dilemma: Work on your negative traits or lose the person you love.

And although this may seem like a simple decision, not all of the ailments that plague us are easy to fix. Some of them have been engrained in us since the day we were born, and changing them often feels impossible (and a little like ripping each and every hair out of your head).

You see, Friday night was my birthday party, and while there were balloons, drinks and plenty of laughs, there were also angry words and tears and lessons learned. And while it’s a new day, the pain of those lessons still hurts. There are still tears hiding just behind tired lids, and there is heaviness with each breath. But while a moment ago I had been focused on all the ways I fall short, my realization made me think about my relationship and the fact that it really is making me a better person, a person capable of loving bigger and better than I do now, a person that I will be proud of one day, and for the first time in two days, I feel ready to get up, dust myself off (once again) and make another go at it. Wish me luck.