What is to Come?

I fell in love.

Yep. There it is.

I’ve been open and honest about the vast array of complicated emotions that have filled my life over the last 9 months and for some reason, sharing the negativity in my life wasn’t ever that difficult for me to do. We all have our own challenging journeys we have to navigate around and throughout these months, I have always known someone who was trying to trudge through much deeper and smellier shit than I was. So, somehow, it was just natural for me to write about mine. It’s always been cathartic.

This blog, though, is different. And the same. I will still be vulnerable and raw – I’ll just be telling a different type of story.

You see, this one is about love.

When everything exploded in my world, I stopped believing in romantic love. How could someone with two failed marriages possibly believe that true love exists? The answer is simple – she couldn’t.

I told my girlfriends that I’d never love again. Fairy tales aren’t real. Love like that surely doesn’t exist. I’ll never be swept off my feet by some Prince Charming. My heart was hardened. I didn’t want to feel love again. Because then, I’d inevitably have to feel that excruciating pain again. And I sure as shit never wanted to shatter again. There’s only so many times you can break before it’s a lost cause.

Or so I thought.

But in the end, I was wrong.

Because I did fall in love. And yet, I didn’t experience excruciating pain when it ended. And I surely didn’t shatter.

And yes, those of you who follow me and read these blogs, you know I fell in love with myself while in Greece.

But I’m talking about before that.

I’ve written from my heart – and with my heart – since I started this writing journey. I’ve been raw, honest, and vulnerable.

But, for some reason, writing about love is so much harder for me. Perhaps it’s because it’s the purest of emotions? Perhaps it’s because it hasn’t even been a year since finding out about my ex’s infidelity? Perhaps it’s because I hear so many people tell me that I can’t, shouldn’t, they wouldn’t…the list goes on. *sigh*

Yet, here I am, my heart racing with nerves as I write this, because love is probably the most intense topic I’ve written about to date. For me, it really is the hardest.

So, thank you. Thank you for reading, for supporting, for commenting, and encouraging, because I’m finally ready to write about love.

I gave my heart to a truly a wonderful man. A man who also happened to be completely emotionally unavailable for me. It was always going to be a dead-end relationship. Dead-end for many reasons.

But…you know what I realized this morning when I woke up?

I fell in love with this guy before I fell in love with myself.

That doesn’t work. It just doesn’t.

You can’t expect someone else to fill your bucket when it’s riddled with holes. I had that epiphany while in Greece and immediately went to work, patching up my holes.

And when I came back from Greece, my path had cleared. He’d fallen for someone else while I was away. It was always going to end and the timing felt right. I’d felt him pulling away for at least the last month we were “together,” so I knew it was coming.

And you know what? I’m happy for him. That’s how I know it was really love that I felt for him. His happiness, his ability to pursue his dreams and settle into the life he’d always imagined, that’s all more important than my momentary sadness at it ending. And since we’re both mature adults, we ended on excellent terms.

Plus…I had this, umm, I don’t even know what to call it other than a magical experience at Byzantino. This is the jewelry store I referenced in my blog: Today is Thursday and where I bought my ring made of old watch parts.

So, quick summary in case you missed that one… While I was in Greece, I went to a super special jewelry store. The women there were beautiful beings, filled with love that they projected onto me. We spent a fair amount of time chatting with one another and I shared my story with them. This was my last day in Greece and I had already undergone an incredible transformation. While we were chatting, one of the women told me things that she saw for my future. My daughter’s, as well. The energy in that little store was so intense while she was speaking and you could literally feel the power behind every word she spoke. It was a moment that has become etched into my very soul.

After purchasing my things, and before I walked out of the store, this same woman approached me with a gift. It was a glass blown heart pendant. As the other woman that worked there was placing it around my neck, she looked me straight in the eyes and began to speak to me about love. She told me that I was going to be blessed with love greater than I had ever experienced before, love that I barely could imagine exists, love that I had ceased to believe was real.

As she spoke these words, I felt my hair go up and had chills all over my body. It was an incredibly intense moment for me where…can you guess what happened? Of course. I cried. It was so intense for me because, with every cell in my being, I believed her. And I knew she wasn’t talking about anyone that was currently in my life.

Somebody else was out there for me. Hoping to feel love like he’d never been loved before. Looking up at the same stars and wishing for the same things as me. A fellow hopeless romantic who would yearn to understand me – all of me. Somebody who would want to hear my stories, feel my history, and use that to understand why I am who I am today. And, more importantly, (now here’s the kicker…) somebody who will choose to make time in his life for me.

My ex didn’t. He couldn’t put his phone down and couldn’t even pretend to care about anything I had to say. And the guy I was seeing, well, in his defense, his career is intense. He rarely has his phone on him during the day. Even so, there were ways he could’ve shown me that I was valued, had he chosen to try, rather than be satisfied having me as a mere convenience in his life. But he chose not to try.

And because of who I was then, because of the lack of love I had for myself, I allowed that type of treatment. I’ve said it before: how could I expect another to value me more than I valued myself?

But in Greece, I shifted. My path shifted. My whole universe shifted, guys! I felt it. Literally. Physically. I can’t even begin to explain the feeling, but people have told me, since coming home, that I look different. And I feel it. My whole aura is bright and light. So, yeah, there’s somebody out there who will match so perfectly with that, that when our paths align, I wouldn’t have to guess my importance in his life. Or hope for it. It’d just be. Effortless. But in the best of ways.

In that moment, in Athens, as I walked out of that jewelry store, my whole world was this new, magical place to live. As I left the little store that was the final piece to my soul’s puzzle, smiling and practically floating along, I fully opened my soul to the universe. My energy was changed. My heart was fully opened. I had learned in the previous month or two that I was capable of loving another. That was a pleasant surprise. I also had learned what made me feel uncomfortable in a relationship. What bags I could help carry and what ones I’d let the other unpack before deciding to join him on his journey. For weeks, I had been thinking I should let the guy go that I was seeing…and then he let me go.

“Trust the journey.” That’s what I kept telling myself in those early days. Over and over. I came home from Greece 3 weeks ago yesterday and, boy, did I struggle with getting my mindset right. It was a fight to be present – I didn’t want to be here. I wanted, desperately, to be back in Greece. So, one night, when I was feeling particularly melancholy, I wrote my photographer friend on Instagram – the one I’d just spent 6 days with in Greece. We’d talked a lot, both before my trip and also so much during my trip. He knew me well by this point and was quite familiar with my story. Here’s a bit of our conversation:

Me: B, I just want to experience all of Earth’s beauty. Greece opened my eyes to so much… And when I say “Greece” opened my eyes, a great deal of that was you. You are such a caring person. Genuine. I want someone in my life who cares like you do. And, man, did we laugh so easily! I want that, too. You set a bar, for a future relationship of how I want to be treated. You opened my eyes to so much more than photography. I’m really grateful for you, for the whole trip, for all the laughter…for everything.

B: No! This is normal. If you respect yourself, you respect others in the same way and I’m pretty sure that you’ll find someone who will care about you… I mean, for real this time. Believe it or not, everyone takes what he/she deserves to have in this life. It’s up to you to live the life that you want. Nothing beats a strong mindset. Everything else is just the result of this.

He repeated exactly what I’d been telling myself. Someone is only going to value, love, respect, (you fill in the blank) me as much as I do myself. I’ll get exactly what I think I deserve and nothing more. I know this now. And I know me now. And I love me! And I just know that somebody is going to see this light that I’m projecting like it’s a damn lighthouse and want to see what it’s all about.

The lady in the jewelry store was absolutely right. I will be loved again. And it’s going to feel out of this world incredible. And I know I deserve that. Because not only am I in a space that is open to being emotionally vulnerable, I also respect and value myself in such a beautiful way now. I’m comfortable being alone. Actually, I rather enjoy it. And I can find comfort in being uncomfortable. And the best feeling? I no longer rely on any outsider to define my worth. I define it.

So, when my path aligns with another, it will be as a sweet addition to my life, not a necessary one. I’ve never been in a position where I’ve felt that to be true. Goodness, it feels amazing.

It’s all quite delightful…this journey I am on. My path has never been clearer. I’ve never felt lighter or more sure of who I am. There’s 15 more days until my birthday and 16 until the last day of this decade. I’m ready to close it down and happily bid it farewell. A lot of incredible things happened in this decade. I’m quite honestly grateful for it all. Even March 17th, 2019. Maybe even especially March 17th, 2019.

And I’m so hopeful for what is to come.