No matter how strong and independent a woman is in her life, when she finally meets a great guy and begins to fall for him, her life becomes filled with emotions she’s not used to. When you’ve been single for a long time, and suddenly there’s this other person in your life that’s truly amazing, adjusting to the new dynamic is a challenge.
- We worry about our freedom. We knew it would happen eventually, but there’s no way to truly prepare for welcoming a new person into the spaces in our lives that we’ve learned to fill because we had to. We struggle with wanting to keep our priorities in line while also finding the time to fit someone new in our world. We know we might need to make reasonable sacrifices, but with no guarantees of a happy ending, it’s a scary wager to make.
- We obsess over the details. Everything becomes a “what does this mean?” scenario because it’s been so long since we’ve known feelings this real. When we start to feel real emotions for someone, we can’t help but feel apprehensive and a bit on edge because we really don’t want to screw it up. We’re not even sure if we’re good at relationships anymore, so we worry about all the minor details along the way and just hope we can keep our acts together.
- We struggle with finding balance. We’ve been alone for so long that spending huge chunks of time with the guy we’re falling for is a scary adventure.We wonder if we’re really, truly ready for this… even if we’ve been searching and saying we’re ready for a really long time before.
- We’re scared of getting hurt. While everyone is scared of being hurt, being single long-term and then suddenly entering relationship territory and feeling real feelings comes with a new level of fear. What if we leave our comfort zones, only to be left shattered into a million pieces? We know we need to jump eventually, but we’re hesitant.
- We feel exposed and vulnerable. Real and genuine feelings have become so foreign in our time alone. Sure, we’ve had crushes, and sure, we’ve liked people in the meantime, but when our hearts start to sink deeper into our chests, the feeling takes our breaths away and we feel naked to our personal sense of security. You can hurt us. We’re in a place where we can be hurt again, and even though we want to try, it’s a scary processing allowing that emotion to push its way through.
- But eventually we regain control. Soon enough, we realize that we have to take the risk, because we’ve been hoping for so long that someone so great would finally cross our paths. When it finally does, apprehension and a wave of fears may temporarily occupy us but eventually we get back into the driver’s seat and put our foot on the gas pedal.
- When we finally fall, it’s for real. There’s no going back. When we finally let go, it’s the real deal. We’ve spent the time alone. We’ve had enough time in between from our last love and we’re ready to let ourselves fall for a new one. One that will hopefully be better, though we know it might not be. But we’re willing to try, even though it’s scary.
