My Better Half...

So I was drinking a coke the other day--diet, of course, because I'm addicted--and this is what it said on it: "Share a Diet Coke with your... Better Half."

Now, I don't want to excuse the fact that my newly single state may have something to do with the rage this caused, but I think I was overcome with anger for another reason.

In this 'modern' society that we live it, we encourage hook-up culture. We tell ourselves and our friends and our frenemies, "don't be in a serious relationship while you're young! Have fun! Sleep around a little bit before settling down with someone!" Society enforces and then reinforces the idea that we don't need anything serious in our lives until we are much older.

(I strongly believe this is why E and I broke up, but hey, that's another ranting blog post for another day).

But society also enforces and then reinforces the idea that when you are in a relationship, you become only half of a whole.

 So because I am single, I am not whole?! But wait... I thought I was supposed to be single and enjoying my life and engaging in the (horrendously stupid) hook-up culture?!

How about we start perpetuating the idea that you, alone, are enough. You are WHOLE. And when you are in a relationship, you don't need to give up half of yourself. When two people are in a relationship, it should be a formation of a dynamic duo, not just one entity. Batman is not half of Robin, and vice versa.

And this is all hitting me in this newfound single-ness. After E kissed me goodbye for the very last time, I found myself feeling like a half. Of course, this is natural in a break-up, and I'm not trying to blame society for my feeling of loss after breaking up with my boyfriend of three years. But why did I feel like I had been supplementing my identity with E and now I had to fill in the gaping holes he left me with?

I found it hard to remember who I was as a whole for a while. I really did give into the idea that the two people in a relationship are each one half of a whole. Our whole lives, we are told that 1+1=2. Yet somehow, when I started dating E, I divided that all by 2 and ended up with 1.

You don't need to work as one in a relationship, you just need to work together. There has to exist a YOU outside the blurry and blissful cloud of kisses and hand-holding and Netflix and cuddles and understanding and kissy face emoji-filled text messages and drunken nights and sex and love that is a relationship.

You are nobody's half. You are a whole--a beautiful, smart, unique, and worthy whole.

YOU ARE ENOUGH.

Anyway, I just hope that everyone sees how important it is that you don't need to sacrifice any part of yourself when you are in a relationship. It's not something that I wanted to do and not something that E wanted me to do, but it happened. And I blame you, Coca-Cola, for perpetuating this silly idea!!!!


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