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.

My Crush Groove

So I’m in a very different space right now.  As I shared on Friday, I have found myself face to face with a man whom I am actually attracted to.  And not just the Oh My This Man is Fine! attraction.  I would actually like to get to know him better.  It has actually taken me by surprise because I have not been looking for it, AND it doesn’t happen to me often.  It’s even more of a shock because it puts me in unchartered territory.  This is the first man I like who I am not finding by default or rebound.  I have been a serial monogamist throughout my life.  As I’ve said, I don’t fall often, but when I do, I tend to move straight into exclusive relationship status and remain there for years.  Each relationship has developed out of my need for validation and recovery from a previous one.  Yet here I am, 34 and experiencing my first non-rebound crush.  And I haven’t even bothered to act on it because right now that isn’t even important to me.  I still think there are some things I need to work on before I involve myself in a relationship.  Thankfully, I am in a place where I am much more aware of myself. 

Experiencing this crush has made me even more aware of myself, more specifically, how I have approached relationships and how I have viewed myself.  I still have some deficits in the area of self-esteem.  As I shared on Friday, I have never been good at seeing the good I have to offer.  I tend to see what I need to work on, what I haven’t done, and what I am not.  I have been doing much better with this issue, then I found myself crushing on Mr. Mister, and all of those self-deprecating thoughts began to surface.  First I started with the Why would he want me? questions.  In my mind, this man can have probably any woman he wants.  The thought that he could actually want me is one I hadn’t allowed myself to vision.  Logically, I am well aware that this is just some frackernackle bull, but my ego still likes to pose this question to me—mainly because my ego is sooo resistant to change and these are the questions I entertained for such a long time.  I even began to have the body issues again.  Now I’m well aware that most people tend to look at their bodies and see imperfections.  However, I was always a bit more extreme.  I never liked my body. It was never good enough for me.  It was too skinny, not nearly curvy enough, too tall, not tall enough.  And then it became too big, curvy, but not curvy in the right places, and just downright unacceptable.  After the birth of my daughter, I became extremely despondent as far as my body was concerned.  I hated the stretch marks that appeared and I did get that c-section pooch.  At that point, all I wanted was the body I spent all of that time hating.  I went through a terrible bout of post partum depression, and even though I was back to my pre-pregnancy weight by my 6-week checkup, I had gained back all my pregnancy weight by the time my daughter was 1 year old (in spite of all my exercise).  After my divorce, my weight came down and I was able to get to a place of appreciation of my body.  My stretch marks are not really that bad and my pooch isn't a pooch anymore.  Actually, when I show my stomach to others and complain, they give me the pat.  You know the pat.  The  pity ridden Oh this poor delusional thing pat that people give you on you thigh, shoulder or back when they feel like you have not even an ounce of common sense.  But that aside, I was able to get to a place where I felt like I looked pretty damn good for a woman who’s given birth, and who was by no means a bounce back chick (You know, Beyonce ‘nem)!  However, upon finding myself in this new crush groove, my ego started firing those body shots. Who would want to look at that, Ugh look at your stomach! ?!

Now I'm well aware that these are completely unhealthy and dangerous thoughts to have.  And this is why it's so great that I’m in this new space because now I don’t actually believe my ego.  However, I have noticed that I do entertain my ego a little longer than I have been recently.  This is all telling me that I’m not quite ready to be in relations with a man on that level.  For me, my relationships have always been my source of validation.  I made each man I partnered with responsible for my entire sense of self-worth.  If he chose me, I was worthy and better than other women.  I was now loveable, attractive, and great.  If he was unfaithful (which they all were), that meant I wasn’t good enough; I was lacking in some area(s).  Yet, I would stay in a quest to get proof that I was worth more.  And when that proof wasn’t delivered to me, I would end the relationship and begin anew with someone else almost immediately, now making it this man’s turn to build me up.  It was a vicious cycle that only eroded my self esteem even more.  What I have since learned is that because I was in that frame of mind, I sent out the type of energy that only attracted men who would not value me. They couldn’t because I didn’t value myself.  I placed a terrible burden upon those men, and I betrayed myself in the process. What I know today is that I am the only one who can build or tear myself down.  I don’t want to make another human being responsible for my self worth. And let’s face it, that mere mortal would fail anyway. 

I’d like to believe that I am different now.  I know better, so I will do better.  I’m not looking for a savior anymore.  Now I’m looking for something else and since I’m now different, I expect that.  However, upon recognizing these monstrous thoughts that have been creeping up, I am seeing that I'm not quite as different as I'd like to be.  I still have some work to do and I'm ok with that.  So I say that all to say that while I do feel I was caught totally off guard by my new crush, I’m actually quite thankful for it.  It has brought things I need front and center.  If nothing ever transpired between he and I, I’ll forever be thankful to him because he’s already helped to make me a better person.