Living Overload

Since my six month check in, a lot has changed. When I wrote my six month check in on March 25th I thought I had figured out this whole dating myself challenge, but God has a way of making life exciting and giving you blessings you have given up on.

Little did I know that God had planted a seed months prior and everything was about to reveal itself. As mentioned in my six month check in I was living life and loving being by myself. I was in no rush to date, at all. I mentioned I didn’t even want to date when my year was up. So how did I end up with a boyfriend a little less than a month later? Well that’s where God’s humor comes through.

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I was at a viewing back in January, two in the same night. That was a rough time for me. During the second viewing, I almost didn’t go, which is crazy in itself because everything that has happened since, wouldn’t have happened. Its crazy to think one small detail could change the entire outcome of everything else in your life. During the second viewing of the night, I was sitting with my mom (I almost went alone, but she felt uneasy about sending me alone to a second viewing in the same night, which thank goodness because it was harder than I expected) and I just wanted to pay my respects and leave. But my friend was known by so many people that it took two hours for me to pay my respects due to the amount of people touched by his soul. I had no problem waiting because paying my respects was the least I could do for him and his family. As I was sitting in the row waiting for my turn I payed no attention to those around me, some could say I had a resting bitch face. I am not one to stir up conversations with people I don’t know, especially at a viewing. I talked to my mom and that was all, up until this guy to my left dropped his phone and exclaims, “oh shit.” I looked to my left and down at his phone and he picked his phone up and looked at me and said, “Oh I’m sorry I didn’t mean to swear.” My first thought was, “damn okay this dude has manners, that’s attractive.” My second thought was how much I enjoyed the way he looked at me.

I have always been a fan of eye contact especially between two people who adore each other. Although I never make eye contact when speaking because I will lose my train of thought, I have no problem just staring into someone’s eyes while nothing is being said. All I saw was his blue/green eyes, dark hair, and bearded face looking at me. He had the kindest eyes and I was instantly attracted to him. When we looked away I thought to myself, “wow and this guy has been sitting next to me the whole time.” But I am at a viewing, I am not about to start talking to him just because I think he is the most beautiful person I have ever seen.

Later after I paid my respects, my mom and I walked out into the lobby waiting for my dad to come pick us up. In the lobby they had a poster of pictures of the life my friend lived and it was a nice touch to see who he was before his and my paths crossed. The same bearded face with kind eyes of a guy was standing next to me. My mom thought he wanted to talk to me so she walked away to give us privacy. As we know I am oblivious and thought nothing of him standing next to me, so when I noticed my mom walked away, so did I. While waiting for my dad I just kept starring at this beautiful human being and would catch him starring at me too. My dad picked us up and we left. I never gave him my name, or my number, after all we are still at a viewing. He never gave me his name or number so all I had to go off of for the next few months of dreaming about him was his dark hair, beard, blue/green eyes, and the red and black checkered flannel he wore that night.

Believe me when I tell you my mom was upset that I didn’t stay long enough for him to talk to me, but in my defense I didn’t he was going to and I honestly didn’t even think about it. She spent weeks trying to tell me I should find him. I didn’t have much to go on and I didn’t have a name, all I had were a few facial features. A best friend of mine who was best friends with my friend that passed away, I asked her if she knew of any of his friends that had these features. She came up empty and that was the extent that I did in search to find him.

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Up until a few months later, right after I made my six month check in post, I started to dream about this guy A LOT. I was never one to constantly dream about someone I didn’t know, let alone didn’t know his name. Morning after morning I woke up from last night’s dreams and asked God why he was letting me dream about a person I didn’t know. It didn’t make any sense. I am supposed to be single for a year, I am not this type of person to dream of an unknown person, what the hell is trying to tell me?

The dreams were nothing scandalous, he would just appear in them and his eyes would look at me the same way he did when I first saw him. Which led me to think about him every morning when I woke up. I tried to ignore the weird sign God was showing me, but once it happens to you once or twice a week for almost two months its hard to ignore. So I decided I would try to find out who he was. Now its been at least three months since the viewing and I was towards the end of my social media break that I have always taken for the last few years. It didn’t occur to me before because I wasn’t on social media, but I decided to look at my friend’s Facebook friends list to find the name of this mystery guy. I figured if he went to his viewing, they are probably friends on Facebook. My friend was well known and well liked so his friends list was lengthy. I started from the top and looked at every dude on his friends list. The first run through I didn’t see anyone that matched the facial features I remembered, so the second run through I figured I would get my mom’s opinion since she saw him more than I did.

The second run through I found this one particular guy. They had similarities but it was hard to tell because not everyone adds a new profile picture every year. I know because I am one of those people. I don’t use Facebook much so it’s not uncommon to find that other people don’t use it much either. I showed my mom his photo and she said it could possibly be him, but doesn’t remember him looking so young. I agreed but his eyes looked the same as this Facebook profile and I figured if anything this could be him but I’m not 100% sure. So I clicked out of Facebook because I wasn’t sure and left it at that. I didn’t think about it because it had been so long I couldn’t really remember and after all I am supposed to be single for the rest of the year.

A few more weeks passed and I was out hiking with some of my friends and I told them I was thinking of sending this guy a friend request. I didn’t think it was him, but then again it could be. They were caught up on the whole ordeal and thought it was a good idea. I mentioned it on our drive to the hike, and on the way back when my friend was sleeping, I decided it was now or never and to just send it. This was so unlike me because again I don’t use Facebook often, let alone send out a random friend request to a person I have never heard of. But I sent it and that was that. I got home and seen this guy messages me, “hey what’s up.” I immediately screenshotted this and sent it to my friends from hiking and freaked out. I didn’t plan for him to message me, I had no idea what to do. My friends informed me to respond back and see where it leads. I did this and you can guess pretty well where it lead as we are now dating and have been seeing each other since mid April.

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I was naïve to think I could plan out the rest of my year dating myself. I felt like I had a pretty good idea on how to date myself and was succeeding on new growth within myself that I started to feel like I was at a standstill with growth. I spent so much time on myself and breaking bad patterns and forming better new patterns that I felt as if I didn’t know how much more growth I could obtain within the year that was left but I was trusting God that he would show me.

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In my nine months of dating myself and being by myself I felt like I learned as much as I could in my current situation. It was easy to focus on myself because all I had was myself. I didn’t have to worry about anyone else. I definitely had some concerns if I was becoming too selfish when I put my needs first above others, but I trusted that God would show me how to overcome these concerns and in his way he did. He showed me that all the hard work I was putting into myself, was setting me up to see how I would continue to work on my growth by placing me in a new situation: a relationship.

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I desperately wanted to be fully ready before jumping into a new relationship, and to me I thought that would come by finishing out my year. But it turns out I learned all I could and it was time to challenge myself. I will tell you it has been challenging for me as I practice everything I have learned through my time dating myself as I date someone else. It has been my favorite challenge thus far, and I am eager to learn about myself as I continue to date someone else. I wasn’t going to just let any person into my life and disrupt my year of dating myself. I really felt like God led me to Benji and I trusted God’s plan and God knew I would have waited forever for the right person and through the talks and conversations with God I felt like letting Benji in was the next right step to take. I truly believe God led Benji and I together and I am excited to share with you our story.

Until next time, spread positivity and happiness,
– Allie

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