Why you don’t need to be fully healed to date, but you do need to be healing.
Two years ago the idea of dating was hard to picture to open this column in all honesty. I was so wrapped up in my healing journey and my cozy little circle that dating felt like an alien concept—one I wasn’t ready to revisit (yet). Healing takes time, and that timeline is different for everyone. But as the months rolled by, and I could no longer hide behind my yoga mat and self-help books, I realized it was time to put all that hard-earned self-awareness to the test and dip my toes back into the dating pool.
Picture a monk on a mountaintop, living a peaceful life with minimal distractions. Sounds spiritual, right? But here’s the kicker: true transformation happens when you can find that inner peace while navigating the chaos of modern life. Let me tell you, after just two months back in the game, I can confirm—dating isn’t for the faint of heart.
Being super aware of your own patterns and quirks? It’s like dating on hard mode.
In the spirit of nostalgia (and maybe a little masochism), I recently started rewatching Sex and the City to see how much dating has changed—or maybe how much I’ve changed. I can’t help but wonder, if they rebooted the series today, would it still be a hit? I mean, let’s face it, the whole red and green flag thing could’ve saved the girls a lot of heartache, but who are we kidding? They weren’t exactly flag-free themselves.
And here’s where I start to question things: are red and green flags just our way of trying to oversimplify life into good versus evil? Maybe it’s not so black and white. The topics Carrie wrote about still hit close to home. We’re all trying to figure out men while also figuring out ourselves—good luck with that. Maybe the key is healing ourselves first, then staying open to what comes our way. And hey, maybe we need an orange flag—a reminder to embrace the nuance, so we don’t get so caught up in labels that we forget to actually enjoy the connection.
As I binge-watch SATC, it hits me—we all have a little bit of each character in us. There’s the hopeless romantic and materialistic Carrie, the hyper-independent Miranda (who these days might be tagged as avoidant attached), Samantha burying her emotions in the xtc of sex, and the perfectionist Charlotte, neurotically dreaming of a picture-perfect life that exists only in movies (and TV series).
Honestly, I’m a mix of all of them. Right now, I’m channeling Miranda, trying to juggle work, dating, and single mom life (à la Season 5). I’m a bit of Carrie with her cringie jokes that don’t seem to have been exclusively handed to dad’s in my case. Maybe I’m also Charlotte, who steps outside her dating “type” because, honestly, I don’t even know what my type is anymore.
The real beauty of SATC? How they celebrate each other and pick themselves up after every fall. The show’s biggest lesson might just be investing in your girl gang. That’s a timeless trend that doesn’t seem to go out of style.
After these two months back in the dating world, here’s what I’ve figured out: you don’t need to be fully healed to date, but you do need to be healing. None of us are the finished product, and that’s okay. We all have red, orange, and green flags—they only become a problem when we stay blind and ignorant towards them.
So here I am, chipping away at the wall I built around my heart, one brick at a time. That wall was supposed to protect the fragile pieces of my heart I painstakingly glued back together. Trying to love again feels like both a rebellious act and a risky move. I'd like to think healing heartbreak has made me even more beautiful, like Kintsugi glues the pieces back together in gold to show the beauty of your efforts of self-love and healing.
The meet cute, the blooming love, the xtc, the connection, the doubt, the troubles, the end, the heartbreak. Romantic love also moves in cycles. But the collateral beauty of falling in love might just be those golden cracks of experience we often try to hide.
Image by Magic Minds Studio
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