About It’s Just Me

This clarity came about on a lone walk around the Charles River at sunset in Boston, when I was pretty sure my relationship was ending. I was really sad and scared to know that yet another relationship wouldn’t last. That someone who’d gone out of his way to tell me he loved me, make me believe it so much that I was sure he did - was changing his mind, leaving. How could I have lost this one?

Here I am, again, I thought. Hopeless and defeated by the idea I couldn’t count on anyone but myself, the words “It’s just me,” came out of my mouth.

But as I looked out at the Charles, the sun sparkling on the kayakers and recreational sailors, the walkers and runners bubbling over with spring fever after months of winter and COVID, a voice inside grabbed and shook me: I was there, at a park I hold dear, a place I grew up and returned to after spending 19 years in L.A. After a lifetime of experiences, I was back. That helpless, hopeless thought wasn’t me anymore.

I wasn’t sunk if my relationship couldn’t swim.

See, breaking up and being alone is something I’m used to. It’s familiar. Over the years, being single again became so familiar that it felt like an old friend returning, or a route I knew like the back of my hand, a feeling of “Oh, I know how to do this.”

Being alone is part of me.

I’d always been fine, and I would be fine, with or without him, and I certainly wasn’t worthless or unlovable if I was single. I knew what I was up to in this world. That my goal to produce and star in a film I wrote, start a production company, and channel proceeds to a cause I believe in - cancer research, particularly women’s and rare forms of cancer - was bigger than anything, even my budding relationship. That my purpose defined me, not whether or not this guy changed his mind, because for once, I hadn’t changed my mind about me.

It has always been just me. I moved to L.A. by myself, no family or friends, when I was 23. No one knows what I’m capable of or what I’ve been through - my unique circumstances - so why then, would I allow others to put their very general ideas on me and try to tell me that my life isn’t enough. One life doesn’t fit all.

Yes, there were many hard, lonely years in L.A., but they taught me who I am. Quite frankly, solitude became something I learned to appreciate, crave even, despite family and society’s efforts to remind me how much an epic failure I was - and any woman like me - for not being hitched. They never stopped to consider maybe the guy I was dating wasn’t good enough - no, it was always, most certainly SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE WOMAN. Yikes. So many times, I saw women entangled in relationships that didn’t serve them, dragged them down instead of building them up. In business, there’s an expression: “if you’re not adding value, you’re taking it away.” Shouldn’t this apply to relationships as well?

If girls are raised with a focus on what we don’t have, who we’re not, how can we feel confident and proud of what we do have, who we are. I want to refocus the lens.

This blog is dedicated to who we are; our accomplishments and unique circumstances to be proud of, the doing of things others say can’t be done, defying odds, defying age, defying stereotypes and redefining standards, living our hopes and dreams, the places we go, even if we have to go alone - especially if we go alone - and doing it our way. I’ll share my ups, downs and all-arounds, and I invite you to comment and share your journey - even if you’re all alone, especially if it’s just you.

Because it’s just me. And that is enough.

#IJM #Proud2BJustMe