by Shira Williams

Every young girl’s dream is simple: finish school, get a career, meet a guy, get swept off your feet, get married, have babies and a white picket fence all before the age of 25. It all sounds like the perfect script to a perfect movie, but it’s not always how life works.  I found that out very quickly.

My background is no different than the next girl. A series of failed relationships had me asking, At what point does a person realize that there has to be change? For me, it was when I realized that with all my finger pointing of who, what, when, where, and how of all my wrong relationships that the bottom equation was always ME.

That is not to excuse the guys that had lied, cheated, and used me, but to recognize my part in each of those relationships. I had to literally go back and reevaluate my role in those relationships. I was not only playing “girlfriend,” but I was playing a series of roles that turned out to not only be unhealthy for me, but unhealthy for the guys I was dating.

I recognized that I was being an enabler, by overlooking serious signs in the beginning and thinking that I could change the issue and even change the guy through the course of the relationship. See, I was relying on my Christian background and thinking that there was a reason that the guy was placed in my life and that there was a lesson learned from the experience. I was so wrong because God does bless us, but there is someone else out there that also blesses us because he knows all of our weaknesses. He hears our thoughts, prayers, wants, and desires. He can provide us what we want. But just because it is what we want, it may not be what we need.

I was just running down the same path time and time again and this did not hit me until the summer of 2009 and it hit me like a ton bricks.  I was at my lowest point. I had just ended yet another relationship. I was feeling like I had wasted  two more years. See, at this point I was the last of my inner circle that wasn’t married and had no kids. I felt alone with a capital “A.” I decided that I was done with relationships and I had made up in my mind that everyone just wasn’t meant to be in a relationship. Being married and having kids was just not in my future. I accepted my fate and for the first time, I was okay with that.

At least I thought I was. I slipped into a bout of depression. I was losing weight because I just couldn’t eat. All I wanted to do was go to work and come home and immediately get in the bed and cry for the rest of the night. I had no one to turn to and I felt myself just slipping away. I just wanted to wallow in my pity and I did not want to talk about my thoughts or feelings. I faked a smile during the day and ached through the night from the pain.

One day I had enough”...I just woke up and decided enough was enough. I slowly started my journey. I had to revamp my whole thoughts and the first thought was, I needed to get back to the basics and for me that was loving me and realizing that I didn’t need anything or anyone to make me feel complete. To help me on my journey, I turned to the one thing that I knew that never left me: my God.

I started praying daily, when I woke in the morning, throughout the day, and before I went to bed at night. I began to keep a journal. Every night I would write a letter to God. It was therapeutic and as I would reread my thoughts at the end of a week, I could really see my growth. I was on my way to recovery.

As I started getting closer to God and seeing my own worth, everything started to form. I was happy about my job, school was going great, and I was no longer in a dark place in my life. I was the poster child in my mind to a promising future. By the fall of 2009 my life would take another turn of events, but this time I was equipped mentally, emotionally, and physically to cope with change and this time I would come out as the victor.

I never fully understood the words “Life comes full circle” until reconnecting with an old dear friend of mine. This was someone that I had met in college 12 years prior that we shared plenty of late night conversations about life, relationships, love, family, goals, experiences, work, you name it. We had so much in common from music to a love of poetry and writing. We were good friends who lived miles apart. We remained friends for a good eight years, but due to reasons I just can’t remember, we drifted apart and the last thing I remember about this friend is that he had rededicated his life and he had plans on moving to Greenville, South Carolina.

Well, fast forward and here we are at the start of 2012. I am happily married with that good dear friend, living in Greenville, South Carolina and I am loving, living, life. Now how about that!

Shira Williams is currently working on a book entitled Life’s Lesson.