Maybe Everyone We’ve Shared A Path With Is ‘The One’

While we’re out living our lives, crafting our hobbies, earning our degrees, giving flight to our dreams, we are also in pursuit of love. Anybody who says otherwise is probably a little bit of a liar.

Personally, I’ve never met anybody who wasn’t at least a little bit on the lookout for somebody who set their heart a flutter, and those who weren’t had just been badly beaten, kicked to the curb, tumbling wildly out of a chaotic relationship that had left them depressed and confused. But even they eventually recovered and join the rest of us in our seemingly never ending pursuit for the one.

But what is the one?

This is such an enormous pair of shoes to fill. How is one person supposed to be the end of the search? A person who will make you forget and forsake all others because they are just that great. There is no conceivably verbal explanation, that’s just the way it is between you two. While there is incomprehensible beauty in this, and I’m not disputing the beauty in it, I am disputing that there’s only one one.

Maybe they’re all the one.

I can hear you laughing at me. I can hear you scoffing. I can even hear you scratching your head in confusing, moving your finger to the mousepad to find something else to read. Fair enough. I realize this is not a popular opinion. We all want to believe we are destined for one person, and maybe we are. Maybe there is just one person we are meant to end up with in the end, but why can’t all the people before that person be the one for something too?

Has any one of us not had a terrible relationship that taught us at least one red flag to watch for in a partner? Is that person not the one who taught us a lesson in intuition? Haven’t we learned through trial and error in relationships about different things to watch for concerning trust? Were those individuals not the one to teach us about that?

And have there not been partners who were so wonderful, unfathomably loving, nurturing, and tender but still were like passing ships in the nights of our lives, showing us that no matter how perfect it feels, some things are not cemented, and some things are not meant to be? These people are the ones that show us love is not enough. It cannot be enough. More is necessary to build a life, and others will come along to show us what that is. All of these people are the ones that will prepare us for that last one, the one we will finish out life beside. All the pain and beauty these individual fill our lives with, all the lessons they teach us, all the layers they peel off of us, will give us more to give the last one.

All of these people will watch us blossom and wilt at various times. They will watch us succeed, fail, change and remain stagnant. All of these things will make them stay or leave and in turn, as we watch these things take place within them, we will decide whether to leave or stay, because we are their one during that time. Maybe we don’t think about that often enough.

What have we taught out partners along the way? How often have we taken this lens of examination, so often used to penetrate those who have hurt us, on ourselves to understand if we have hurt or helped those we have come in contact with? Have we spread kindness, stability, and compassion in the lives of our partners, nourishing them as they pursue their goals, or have we been a source of anxiety and uncertainty?

There are many ones and we are the one to many. As we learn from one another, it is important we are aware, and delicate with another. We’re in this together and while the first person we are with may not be the person we finish this life beside, it does not mean we need to be careless, reckless, or cruel. Maybe this is just the first of many things we should keep in mind as we meet one of many ones along the way.