Was Lisa right? Did I set my standards too low? Why couldn’t I believe her when she called me an ‘amazing woman’? I had always thought of myself as confident. I had accomplished a lot of successes in my life. Yet upon reflection I realized the men I had chosen didn’t really measure up.

This was on my mind when I was scrolling up and down my Facebook wall when I came upon a simple message “until you truly love yourself you will not truly love another”. . . I felt naked and exposed as though the Facebook Algorithms had been reading my mind. I had seen messages like this before, but in this moment it rang true. Maybe I didn’t need to find love, I needed to find ‘self-love’?

I googled “How to Love yourself” and found a quick and efficient step by step guide on “wiki-How”: Step One: “Connect with your Spirit - Learn to be “self-aware” I googled ‘self-awareness; and read ‘conscious knowledge of one's own character through a mindful practice’. . . so I Googled ‘mindful practice’ and learned it meant “the psychological process of revealing one’s spiritual self?” I googled ‘spiritual self’ and read ‘one who lives a conscious lifestyle’. I googled ‘conscious lifestyle’ and found a promising article that suggested I start by ‘becoming self-aware’. “SELF AWARE?” I realized I had come full circle plus had spent over an hour on my laptop and had come no closer to learning how to love myself better.

I took my quest to a bookstore and was poring through the self-help section considering titles such as “Make Chili for Your Inner Child” and “Loving Love Lovingly”. I settled on the hit best seller: “The Cosmo Girl’s Guide to Self-Love”

Chapter 1: Look Like You Love Yourself

Part 1: “Dress for success with a fresh new fashion or sassy new style!”

This made sense. I bought some new outfits and even got my hair done. Check!

Part 2: Explore your inner vixen with some adventurous new lingerie. Although I blushed at the thought, I wanted to get it right. I found myself at Victoria’s Secret and shyly sidled up to the thong bins. I had always been quite curious about these things. They’d become popular when I was already 8 years into my marriage and fully committed to my off-white Granny fullbacks that were as comfortable as they were practical. I held one up and studied it as it dangled like a few long strands of fettucine. . . “why not?” I thought. . . I picked 3 of the most tasteful pairs, still wondering just where that longest fettucine strand was going to ride on my derriere. I arrived home and tried a pair on. To my surprise it was not the least bit uncomfortable, plus I felt quite attractive. . . perhaps even a little bit sexy. Later on, I almost pranced into Yoga class I was feeling so good about myself. I was majestically holding warrior pose when I sought out my reflection in the mirror. To my horror I could see the entire outline of my thong through my yoga pants – like a thick elastic band tightly wrapped around a tube of fresh mozzarella. I ran to the bathroom, peeled off the thong and threw it in the trash. I decided I’d rather go freestyle for the rest of the class then suffer the embarrassment of appearing as though my ass had been trussed up like a chicken.

I threw the book in the give-away pile.

“You need a life coach!” Lisa announced over coffee. “I have a good one! You don’t even have to meet her in person – everything is done online you know.” Within a few days, I was on a Zoom session with my new life coach. “Christine you are simply bored.” she concluded. “Just get busy. Stop looking for love and start doing what you love.” I was assigned to list 50 activities and hobbies I had never tried but always wanted to. One month later, I had tried many things including adult kombucha fermenting, zen garden building, line dancing, pole dancing, and trapeze swinging. When all was said and done, I simply felt lonelier than ever.