It's that time again...wedding season. The 13th season of The Bachelorette just premiered. For the next 6 months, churches and other beautiful venues will be booked for the special occasions. And just as I expressed how weird it would be to not attend a wedding this season, I received the best news: my best friend had been proposed to by another great friend of mine! I'm at the age now where it is the norm to get married, and everyone knew this moment would come for her someday soon. However, that didn't stop me from looking like an absolute blubbering idiot.

This beautiful couple has taught me so much about what is important in a relationship... friendship, creativity, sacrifice, unconditional encouragement, a craving for each other's intelligence. They have taught me that these things must naturally fit into each other's desires like pieces of a puzzle until over time the pieces form into one big, beautiful puzzle.

I've come to realize that when the puzzle pieces of your relationship don't fit together perfectly as they did for my lovely friends, you keep trying. You move onto other pieces, whose shapes are close enough to make it work. But over time you become frustrated that the edges of the pieces don't flush; you can't ignore it any longer. And then...eventually you realize the beautiful puzzle will never be complete because you can't magically force the mismatched pieces to fit together.

So where does that leave me? You probably thought I was going to tell you the fairy tale details of the proposal and how I'm ready to follow suit. Perhaps another day. But today this is a story about me, the single girl at the wedding.

I chose to be the single girl. I once thought I had what my friends had, the happenings of a big, beautiful puzzle. But some of the pieces weren't fitting together. They were never going to fit together--if we were both going to keep our sanity. So, I decided it was time to focus on myself. To truly love myself. To encourage myself to follow my dreams. To artistically express myself once again. To expand my knowledge of the world. To take risks and make mistakes, but never fail. However, after all this, I am far from where I need to be. And so, I will be the single girl at the wedding.

I have never been more confident. I have never networked more. I am able to speak out on what I believe and I have learned to seek proper help, unafraid of what people think. I am free to discover my womanhood, unrestricted. I am free to explore the world for all its diversity. The very core of me strives for success and I am free to work toward it as I wish. Still, after all this, I am far from where I need to be. And so, I will be the single girl at the wedding.

I am an observer. I have seen when relationships work and I have seen when they fail. My favorite successful ones start something like this: two people are friends, but only friends because one of them is taken by an outsider, leaving the other one friend-zoned. The latter friend patiently waits in the friend-zone until the former's faulty relationship ends. Things naturally fall into place over time.

These relationships have taught me to just enjoy the moment for what it is, don't rush, don't force, just live. When the right person comes along there will be no doubt, because the spiritual attraction will be too strong to fight it. These successful relationships have taught me that all worthy things take time. So time I will wait. And until then, I will be focusing on myself. I will be keen to the balance of attention I give others and vice versa so as to not force things. While my friends get married, I will happily sit back as the single girl at the wedding.