I'm In Love

So it’s been a long time.  I shouldn’t have left you. Without some deep words to read to.  Uh .. . . well . . . you know what I’m saying.  Anyway, we’re well into the fourth and final quarter of the year and I think this has been an amazing year for me.  2012 has been the year of conscious work for me.  I have been spending a considerable amount of time doing a lot of work on myself this year—especially within the last couple of months.  And to be honest, I think I can safely say it has paid off in the form of huge returns. Yes it has because I am now in love!  Yes you heard, or read me correctly.  I am in love!

I now know what the big deal is all about.  Being in love gives you this Hi-Pro glow like you wouldn’t believe!  I’m all glow-y and happy and there’s a spring in my step. So I guess you’re probably wondering who is this masked person who has me feeling so good.  Well, I’ll tell you.  She is absolutely wonderful!  She is beautiful. She is smart.  She is funny, kind, generous, and compassionate.  She loves all the things I love and detests all the things I detest.  I like her AND I love her.  She is just a wonderful person.  And her name is Je’Niece!

Yes, she is I!  I am in love with myself and I am so happy about that.  I’ve spent a huge portion of my life searching outside of myself for validation and love.  These past 4 years have helped me to recognize that all that which I seek is already mine.  I already have the love I want.  I am the love I want, I just wasn’t giving it to me.  I spent a lot of time criticizing myself, comparing myself to others—while subsequently deducing that I was the automatic lower option of the comparatives, shutting myself down, and failing to recognize my own worth and beauty.  And I did all of this while hoping, wishing, and wanting someone else to do the exact opposite for me.  I wanted someone else to see me as beautiful.  I wanted someone else to build me up, support me, nurture me and love me.  Spoiler alert, I never did find anyone to do that.  I mean yes they would be sweet and do all those things initially, but once they got to know me, that would end.  I would get exactly what I gave myself.  Then I’d have the nerve to be hurt, shocked, disappointed, and scared.  Will anyone ever love me the way I deserve?  Well if you keep that up, the answer is no. And the answer has been no for quite a while.  Well I’ve finally figured it out.  I have the love I want.  And what’s more, I’m giving it to myself.

 So since it’s been a while, I’ll tell you what happened with my Mr. Crush.  The honest answer is he crashed.  I have a mutual friend who knows him and she negotiated a little meeting of the minds between us.  It started off really nicely.  He seemed really interested and attentive and I saw great potential. We met up at Buffalo Wild Wings and we talked for about 2 hours.  It was really nice and easy.  I heard Jill Scott’s Easy Conversation playing all through my head.  Immediately after our meeting, just as I was driving away, he texted me to say what a great time he had with me, how drawn he was to me and I thought wow, how nice.  I could get used to this.  We met up again after that, and that’s when things took the turn.  He still seemed interested and we talked and then he became kind of sporadic.  That’s when I started hearing a lot of “I miss you” and “I wanna see you” but there was no follow through.  So I told him, to do something about it.  We decided he would come over one Wednesday after he got off work and he was a no-show.  He didn’t call, text or anything.  So just to make sure I would be justifiably angry, I texted him to make sure he was ok.  I received a very nonchalant Yeah I’m great, how are you, to which point, I knew with absolute certainty that I was in fact justifiably angry. I didn’t respond to his text and the following morning, I received a seemingly heartfelt and apologetic text.  He texted me saying that he was sorry but his school had a volleyball game, which he was made to stay late for, afterwards the kids got into a fight, and it was such a mess that he was just tired.  Now, how any of that prevented him from making a phone call or text to cancel is beyond me, but that’s what the man said.  I responded by saying Thank you for telling me, but of course it would have been better if you had said so yesterday before you left me hanging.  This fool responded by saying lol, oh really.  Well I don’t know about you, but my interpretation of that was that he did not care at all that he left me hanging and he seemed a bit surprised that I called him out on it.  Yet, I’m nice cause I gave him another opportunity to hang, er, redeem himself.  We were supposed to meet up again a couple of weeks later.  He said 3ish on Saturday.  Well at around 1 he texted me to say he was running late waiting for his barber.  I told him to let me know.  Well, I didn’t hear from him again until 10 minutes after 5.  He said he was ready and asked what I was doing.  I said I was headed home and then I started getting the sorry’s and I really wanted to see you.  My response was a simple.  I said, This may sound harsh, but I don’t want to hear that.   After that, I received a very sharp response, which included:  wow ok I told you I would be late.  It’s my bday weekend and I thought you understood, but it’s cool. Ttyl.  Now in another time of my life, I would have really begun to doubt myself and feel as if I did something wrong.  But because I am in this new space, I didn’t even bother myself to get upset.  That simply let me know that this dude is just not into me and I don’t need to waste my time hoping wishing, praying, or waiting for him to figure out how great I am.  I will also mention that I was caught a bit off by the fact that a grown ass man used the phrase ttyl.  But I digress.  Anyway, I already know how great I am, so his failure to recognize it doesn’t affect me in any way.

And I’m so proud of myself because I know in the past this would have sent me into a downward insecurity spiral.  I would second-guess myself; I would start comparing myself to other women, deciding which would be his “type” since it’s obviously not me; and I would start the “what’s wrong with me” questions.  Essentially, I would be so hard on myself, but today, I am not.  I am simply loving on myself.  I’m not even upset about it.  I take the lessons learned, the good times I had (and there were some good, albeit brief, times).  And I really did learn from him.  He really helped me confront my fear of being loved and accepted, as well as my trust issues, and my own issues against myself.  I now know that I really am ready to love and to be loved and I can release all of those old defense mechanisms that weren’t defending a damn thing any ole way.  I can confidently walk into the future without expecting anything from anyone because I know that all that I want is already mine.  I just now have to look inward and release all the things from within.