I Didn't Know I Needed This: The New Rules for Flirting, Feeling, and Finding Yourself—An Unfiltered Relationship Manual with Candid Insights, Embrace the Chaos of Modern Dating

by Eli Rallo

Who the fuck are you? You are one of a kind. Which is pretty fucking cool. When you’ve got nothing else, you have the knowledge that there’s only one of your brain. One set of your fingerprints. You are an amalgamation of memories and hard days and great days and your favorite season and smell and that one linen dress. You are a work in progress, you are a Picasso, you are a national treasure, you are trying your best, you are so fucking interesting—and there are people out there who will get to know you one day, and call their mom and say, “she’s just incredible.” You are a fully formed and valid and hot and exciting and sad and sexy and lost human being all on your own. You’ve been equipped with everything you need to go through it all. You are whole, and any person entering your life—friend, lover, or otherwise, will only add to your overflowing cup. You have your goals, you have your cake and sometimes life gets so good you get to eat it, too. Light the candles and make a wish; it’s someone’s birthday every day, after all.

Though I was content, most of me knew the real reason was that deep down, the universe was telling me that if I did open the door to the opportunity, it was going to work out. And nobody talks about this, but something working out is frankly more terrifying than something not working out at all.

Look at what you do have. I was letting everything I did have go out with the tide, and I was sitting on the beach all alone, searching for what I felt I lacked, and what kept coming back to me was everything I took for granted. I gave myself emotional whiplash, placing romantic love on a shiny pedestal and kicking everything else—familial love, friendship, love for myself, my career—to the curb. I reminded myself that once I found that devoted, everlasting romantic love, I would no longer feel so much discomfort. But trust me, you must heal the parts of yourself you see as unlovable or desolate. No one else can heal you.

if something is right, if someone is right, there are no wrongs. It just wasn’t the right time.

There are no wrongs if it’s right.

nothing easy ever became anything great.