Just the Way You Are

by Beth Moran

This was my first date in nearly two years. Even if Mark didn’t turn out to be ‘the one’, I was in desperate need of the practice.

First date on V day?!???!!???

Here’s what I should have learnt years ago, given my job, and my disastrous family: there are imperfect, mixed-up, complicated people everywhere. People who are simply doing the best they can to shake off whatever’s been dumped on them, pick themselves up and keep on going. I’d wasted a lot of time disqualifying myself from this grand adventure called life – I might make a mistake, take a wrong turn, fail spectacularly. The truth dawned on me that summer evening, as the sunset lit up the forest in a blaze of fire and the memories that swirled around us slowly sank into the shadows – I will make a thousand mistakes, I will take many wrong turns, and I may well fail spectacularly, along with every other person who ever lived. And when these things happen, I will shake it off and get back up again – maybe accepting a helping hand, if I need it – and I will keep on going.

While I knew one night in a tent less than five miles from home wasn’t that exciting to some people, it was a huge deal to me and I was unashamedly treating it as such.

May we all treat our "big deals" as such without shame

Is there a bigger risk than choosing to be yourself, however boring or peculiar that might be, and allowing other people to know that person, while committing to loving them for the long haul?

And for George – how precious to love and be loved just the way we are.