The Single Woman’s Dash of Sass: Weakness…or Uniqueness?

Quotes of the Day:

“If you want God to use you greatly, you must be willing to walk with a limp the rest of your life, because God uses weak people.” ~Rick Warren

“Your biggest weakness is just your greatest strength turned up too loud.”  

“In the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths.” ~Drew Barrymore

The Single Woman Says:

Confession time.

I’ve always felt that one of my greatest weaknesses was my tendency to be somewhat romantically-challenged. I mean, let’s face it: I haven’t had the best of luck in the area of love. My romantic “roads not taken” include a wide array of un-dateable and emotionally unavailable guys. I’ve managed to rack up two award winning marriage proposals – one in the form of a drunken text message at 3:00 a.m. and the other the infamous non-proposal from my Mr. Big, when he closed down an NYC jewelry store to show me engagement rings then conveniently forgot to propose. I’ve had an ex beg to take a lie detector test to prove he didn’t cheat on me and then subsequently fail, and yet another who seemed entirely normal until after the second or third date, when he tried to sell me drugs. (It should be noted here that the strongest drug I’ve ever consumed is Benadryl, so I was seriously thrown for a loop by the afore-mentioned drug dealing ex.) I even once dated a pastor-in-training who proclaimed his love to me one week, telling me God had told him that he was my husband, only to stop speaking to me the next. (Talk about mixed signals.) And still another ex who I made the mistake of recycling several times over the course of a ten-year span, always thinking “This time he’s changed!” who found new and creative ways to stand me up when I was 20, again when I was 25, and yet again when I was 30. (Thus spawning one of my favorite signature tweets: “Don’t recycle your exes. It’s bad for the environment!”)

My point to this trip down Mandy’s Memory Lane of Not-So-Memorable Flames is this: I could very easily look at my love life as tragic…but I choose to look at it, instead, as magic.

What glue is she sniffing? You might ask, as you gaze upon the fiasco that is my romantic history. MAGIC?!? But hear me on this; If I hadn’t had so many insanely off-the-wall and wildly colorful experiences in love AND in life – I wouldn’t the words of wisdom that I bring to you daily, the result of my many hard fought battles in the Game of Love. I might not have found love (yet), but I DID find my purpose. I found my destiny. I found my calling in life. All because I chose to flip the script and look at my biggest weakness…as my biggest uniqueness.

So now I ask you: What do you view as YOUR biggest weakness? Perhaps you have always struggled with your weight. Maybe you’re a clutz. Perhaps you have acne, or braces, or “four eyes,” or frizzy hair. Or maybe it’s something more serious…like an eating disorder or a miscarriage or infertility. Whatever it may be, know this: Your flaws will always, always point you to your cause. I’m not saying you deserve to have to endure pain or that your situation isn’t difficult, and horrible, and heartbreaking. What I’m saying is that in the midst of that struggle lies your ability to help someone else through theirs. The burden you carry gives you the innate ability to help lighten the load for others. And your darkest, most pitch black night allows you to point others to their light. Don’t deny your weakness…embrace it as your uniqueness. Realize that it gives you a sphere of influence and a platform that you would never have otherwise. YOU have the ability to reach people on their level, right where they’re at, in a way that no one else on this earth can. Don’t run from it – run toward it. And next time someone tells you that your imperfections make you WEAK, tell them: “Nope. They make me UNIQUE.”