sometimes i get a little crazy

my life has been a little on the interesting side lately. honestly, the past month and a half has kicked my tail and ways i don't even want to begin to describe. and it's kept me away from writing because i needed to process and realign some things. actually, i have been writing, i just haven't been sharing. and you know what they say, "sharing is caring."

i've learned a few new things about the process of falling in love. the wrestling with the fears that keep your guard up; the back and forth conversation you have with yourself about whether or not your feelings are real; the up and down battle with doubt that you're in it alone or imagining things. i'm telling you, it can be a doozy. my emotions have probably run the entire spectrum of euphoric nirvana to can't eat heartbreak. it's enough to make a sane person feel a little less sane.

but at the end of the day i've come to realize that "it's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all" is a true statement. the joys and pains of it all can teach you so much about yourself and life in general. it's a journey and sometimes it works out in your favor, sometimes it doesn't. either way, i know i wouldn't trade it for anything in the world! and for the record, i'm definitely in love. hehehehe

i'll be free to love you somewhere

wow. i am so amazed by what falling in love can do to a person! the giddy laughter, lightness of heart, pure joy and excitement at the prospect of seeing the person. it's all laughable when you think about it. yet, the feelings are so intense that people actually fall in love with the idea of being in love! i never understood before. i've been in love. once. it ended badly. we won't walk down that road. but nothing about that experience made me in a hurry to relive it.

yet here i am asking God and the universe to send me love that knocks me off my feet. and you know what? it's a pretty amazing feeling. who knew? well, i guess hollywood since they keep selling us the idea of kismet love in romcom after romcom. and then there are the fairytales who knew about the power of love. the point is that until now, i never did. the funny thing is that despite it ending badly the last go around, i have no fear about experiencing it now. it really can end horribly! i could end up crying my eyes out for weeks or months. i could be so distraught that i stop eating. i could spend an entire year reliving the experience. but even knowing that doesn't change my desire to fall in love. it might be dumb to admit this in a public forum but i'm already there. you can be witnesses to the fact that i am definitely in love. kind of seems like a roller coaster if you read the previous posts but i decided to stop letting the fear of rejection and unrequited love keep me from admitting my feelings now.

he might not be the one for me but trust me when i say i'm enjoying every bit of the time we spend together right now. he makes me laugh. we have great conversation. we have enough in common to spend a lifetime enjoying. we share a world view. we dream in a like manner. and we want a lot of the same things. i'm happy when we're together and i miss his smile and his voice when we're a part. i'd say i probably have it pretty bad. but i'm not ashamed of it anymore. in fact i'm enjoying it completely. and what's the crime in that?

love her like she wants to be loved

i happily purchased the new vivian green cd today. it's called beautiful and i have to say the title song is in fact beautiful. the girl has so much talent and i've been a fan since day one. let her make her way to seattle for a show and i guarantee that i'll be in the audience vibing with my girl. but the reason of this post is the lyrics to the song beautiful. she says something about loving her like she wants to be loved. wow. what a concept. to not only know how you want to be loved but to actually have someone love you that way!!!!

i don't know how i want to be loved to be honest. i want to be loved for who i am and not who i can become. i want to be loved inspite of my flaws and shortcomings. i want to be loved completely by the man that i love back. it doesn't seem like too much to ask and yet most people seem to find the process of finding love difficult. i'm in that category. i haven't found love though i'm actively pursuing it. but when i find it, i hope i have a clear understanding of how i want to be loved and that i'm able to communicate that. and i hope that my guy can say that i love him the way he wants to be loved as well. it is a two way street afterall.

hitting the bottom

the thing about falling is that at some point you reach the bottom. if you have ever fallen before you know that the landing can break you. i took a spill on my roller blades last summer and broke my arm. it hurt like hell! thankfully i had drugs to manage the pain while i recovered. i haven't been back on my roller blades since that day. honestly, i'm a little afraid of falling again.

for me, falling in love is a lot like that spill i took on my roller blades. i was coasting along just fine enjoying the feel of the wind in my hair and the fresh air against my face. then out of no where i lost my balance and crashed to the ground. when i finally picked myself up i was broken and in pain.

it's not that i was in love but it was definitely moving in that direction. but the dtr (define the relationship) conversation didn't really go as planned. his words were just like that damn rock that got caught in my wheels and brought me crashing to the ground. i won't repeat them here because, well, this is a public forum and i'm talking about a private pain. and unlike when i broke my arm, i don't have a pill i can take to make it hurt less. i get the wonderful privilege of feeling every single bit of hurt that comes with the realization that you and the person you were seeing are not on the same page.

of course i'm in good company as many people find themselves in this same spot. it doesn't make it suck any less. the icing on the cake is that yet again, i got to hear the words, "i think you're amazing and i want to keep being friends." right. because everyone woman is dating a guy so they can just be friends. yep. falling can really suck. but i don't regret one minute of it. while i have yet to strap on my roller blades after taking a fall, i refuse to stay out of the love game just because i got hurt. some people are happy to spend the rest of their lives alone. i'm not one of those people. i thought he was a great fit for me. and maybe he was. but it didn't work out so i strap up and get back out there.

the right guy for me is out there and he's going to be ready for love and all that it brings. i just wish the search was not as difficult as it's proven to be over the years.

catch me catch me i'm falling

i am terrible at navigating girl culture when it comes to boys. i flirt just fine. i dislike the giggly, googly eyed, gushy stuff that comes with crushing though. never got into that. imagine my surprise as i find myself falling for someone and feeling those exact things!

it's not fair really. i've managed to go my entire life without fawning foolishly over someone. sure i've had love interests and even fallen for someone before but i never acted like a school girl. so what is it about this man that has me acting out the school girl crush phase that i triumphantly avoided when i was a school girl?

to my credit i'm not going around writing my first name with his last name. i don't write both of our names inside a lop-sided heart. i'm definitely not planning out our futures and naming our children. that's exactly the kind of disturbed thing i couldn't roll with when i was younger. i do find myself smiling when i think about him. i've been listening to sappy love songs that i always ignored before. i even wrote a few short stories about us. seriously? i would totally make fun of me if it weren't me!

again i say it's not fair. my teenage niece told me i was crushing on him. i tried to explain to her that grown folk don't crush and i most certainly don't crush. she laughed at me and said, "oh auntie, you're definitely crushing on him!" she then proceeded to sing the sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g song. it's not that level trust me. but i can admit with complete assurance that i'm falling for him and i'm okay with that.

Pain is inevitable

Pain is the inevitability of love. If you open your heart to someone, it is a huge possibility that it will be broken. That's just how it works. It sucks and the pain can really hurt deep and for a while, but it's part of the process. Trust me, I know a thing or two about it.

To be fair, my heart was only broken once. Since I've only been in love once, I think it balances out. Someone wise said that marriage is the closest thing to heaven and the closest thing to hell you will ever experience. I don't know for sure if that's true but I can imagine that being that close to someone could be a little like heaven and hell wrapped into one big messy ball of gush. Why are people in such a rush to walk down the aisle again?

Don't get me wrong, I want to get married and have that heaven/hell experience with the person that floats my boat just right. I just realize that I've never been in love with being in love. I don't want the romanticized version of it. I don't want the fairytale happy ending crap that is shoved down our throats. I deal in reality and it's a cold, cruel world out there waiting to shatter the fantasy of love and replace it with what it's really like to live with someone 24/7 and become one with them. It's not easy and everyone who thinks it is, is kidding themselves.

I am a product of divorce and that has always colored my views on marriage. I understand why my parents didn't stay together and I completely agree with the decision. I don't want the same thing for my family. My childhood was traumatic. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. So I approach love with my eyes wide open. I'm not wearing rose colored glasses. I'm not dreaming of a knight coming to whisk me away. I'm not dreaming of finding the one person in the entire universe who makes me feel complete. Life is not a fantasy.

I want someone who loves me whether I'm having a good day or not. I want someone who can live with all my flaws and imperfections and love me in spite of that. It's not easy to find that kind of love. It's not easy to reciprocate that kind of love. But when you find it, that's what's real. You might get hurt in the process of searching for it, but when you find it, I hope you have more heaven than hell. And I hope you find new reasons each day to hold on to it forever.

Revising "The List"

I live in beautiful and rainy Seattle. It is a metropolitan of contradictions. We have the most beautiful natural scenery but it's hidden behind fog and clouds most of the year. We are home to some of the most caffeinated people on the planet but we boast high levels of depression. There is always some festival, art show, concert or sporting event going on but it is possible to live here for years without making a connection with people. There are a number of good looking, educated black men here yet dating is long suffering. You get my point by now, so I will move on. This post is about the contradiction of having an eligible pool of black men to date and still not meeting anyone.

You ladies know dating does not rank high on my list of activities. For those of you who thought that might change with the new year, let me assure you it has not! I still loathe the process. More than the process of dating, I sincerely hate creating "the list." Yes, you know what I mean. The list of attributes, accomplishments and assets that we think guarantees a match made in heaven.

When I think of the list I created for my ideal mate many moons ago, I break out in hysterical laughter. It included height (I'm short so I wanted some one tall to give my children a chance), skin tone ( I love my chocolate brothers), athletic build (I'm a former cheerleader and I enjoy physical activity), well groomed (that requires no explanation) and a few other items that rarely ventured passed physical attraction.

As I matured I added things like enjoys movies, likes to cook, has a sense of humor, wants to travel, can enjoy great conversation and appreciate silence. My tastes went from being purely physical to include a number of personality traits. I would take my list out and edit it each year in hopes that the latest revision brought me closer to meeting my Mr. Right.

Once I started understanding my identity in Christ, I added some more spiritual sounding things such as, must love God, enjoys spending time in the Word, goes to church regularly. You know the routine. Before too long, I had a lengthy list of things I wanted in a man and began to pray over it just like I was taught at church. A funny thing happened. I knew a man who matched my checklist almost to the dime. We grew up together and no one could tell me I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life with him. But, he didn't choose me. In my mind it didn't make sense because he was my list. Everything I had been taught said that once I found the things on my list it would work out.

I spent many nights crying, of course, and wondering what went wrong. Did I not match his list? Did I not add enough of the right things to my list? Did I fail to pray hard enough over my list? It was madness! After a few years of swearing off love and deciding to open my heart to it again, I have learned a few things. Checking items off your list does not guarantee relationship success. It can be a good starting point, I guess, but you need to have the right things on the list for it to matter in the first place.

For instance, many women want a man with a good job, education, his own home, etc. I know a few men in that category and they have no interest in having a relationship right now. So when women meet them, they are disappointed the happily ever after doesn't follow. Maybe they should have added "ready for a relationship" to the list!

I no longer have a list. Or, I should say not your typical list. I do have standards and expectations, as should everyone looking to trust someone else with their heart. It's just, my current list looks nothing like the previous versions. I have four simple requirements and I will not yield on any of them. They represent the core of who I am and a person who doesn't fit those four requirements can't possibly be good for me. Okay, I know you want to know. Here it is:

1. Loves God with his whole heart
2. Loves me like Christ loves the church
3. Loves life completely
4. Loves people deeply

That's it. If those four things are in place I believe we can have something to build on for years to come. So, what does your list look like? How has it changed over the years? I would love for you ladies to share with our readers. We're all single and in the same boat, so let's get through this thing together!