Confession:

For the past few years, I’d say, my heart has been fumbling through the process of wanting to be in love. Sometimes it’s all I can think about. I daydream of the possibilities, I thirst to taste its beauty, and my soul hungers to feel its embrace. I can’t quite explain why love has such a hold on me, but it does, and because of it I’ve been held captive and I don’t necessarily want to be set free. However, I do want to be free of the chains that lay hold to my wrists and the shackles that bind my feet to the idea of a love that isn’t quite like the love I know it can be.

Since I can remember I’ve been attracted to the very notion of love. Everything about it calls out to me. When I inhale the freshness of the air, I can smell its aroma in the atmosphere surrounding me. The days I’m able to sit back and admire the beauty in the sun setting, I can see its ardent colors rising over my day like a banner.

Yet though I can see it in everything, hear it in the stillness of the day, smell it as the winds blow, feel it in nearly everything I do, and taste it through my words, my soul becomes discontent in waiting to be loved both effectively and efficiently. Being a single, seemingly attractive, and caring woman I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t met a man that wouldn’t waste my time, his time, and hurt me. I saw good men everyday, but none of them seemed to be interested in me. The loneliness made me question everything. Every corner I turned there was someone commenting on how “Beautiful” I was, how great of a “smile” I had, and how “one day I’d meet someone deserving of me.” Yet, no matter how many times I’d heard those things, after awhile I began to doubt the validity of their comments.

As if feeling unlucky, in the love department wasn’t enough of a disappointment, my career had plummeted. Things hadn’t worked out as I’d planned, and it seemed like all my efforts to stay afloat only further sunk the ship that was “My Life.” Because of all the chaotic drama encircling me, in  August of 2016, ungraciously I accepted temporary defeat and returned to my hometown in Alabama.

Initially I was only scheduled to be there for a few weeks, but hey, that quickly escalated to 6 months. In that time, I’d been given the opportunity to re-evaluate some decisions, gather new strategies, and restructure my life. Once I’d gained everything I needed to pick up where I left off, I copped a plane ticket, packed my bags, and relocated to the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) area pursuing a way out. I’d been so bogged down by my own troubles that I needed an escape, and I needed to en-graft myself in a culture that would inspire me to move. When I say move, I mean get up off my soap box and be productive. There was so much I needed to get done, and in the place I’d been, I sat comfortable in my own misery.

I arrived in the DMV late February determined to get what I’d lost back. However, I had no hope. It’d been misplaced. Shortly before I arrived, my heart had been shattered into millions of tiny little pieces, and I just knew I wasn’t going to get them back. I’d allowed an old flame to rekindle inside of my heart, and when he doused out what little embers still burned, I felt reduced to mere ashes. You know, the state of ash, that upon any form of touch, it disintegrates into more rubbish. It was unlike any experience I’d ever encountered. I can recall nights I’d been woken up from my sleep, drenched in sweat, heart pounding ten times faster than normal, and gasping for air. I couldn’t breathe while I was asleep; neither could I bare the pain of going to sleep being tormented by my dreams. Every night, I had these dreams that tortured me consistently, all possessing a central theme, “him.” I couldn’t take it. So, most late nights, I sat up through the night either talking to Destiny or Tiffany searching for solace. Some of those nights, they just sat listening to me cry, unaware of the full condition of my mind.

It was difficult to wrap my head around the situation. I mean when someone says “I Love You,” you naturally expect them to mean it. Especially when that person knows exactly how you feel about them, and knows to what extent you’re willing to go for them. To make matters worse, it was long before I moved to the DMV, that he and I spent time together. Apart from the constant conversations, most times we were together we just talked. The night I’m thinking of in particular, we spoke of everything under the sun. Although some time had passed, prior to us reconnecting, we both knew and expressed how we truly felt. Beyond that, that night we engaged in everything possible but an actual physical rendezvous. It’d been years since I’d allowed intimacy in any form, shape, or fashion in, and at the time I felt ready. It felt right, and just flowed naturally.

Although I had to be at work at 5am the next morning, I ignored the fact that it was already almost 2am. Hours had passed, and I enjoyed every moment of it. Apparently, I had to have been the only one, because a couple days passed and I hadn’t heard from him. The next month arrived, and by this time weeks had passed with no communication between the two of us. Each day that passed, brought about its own uncertainties. I asked myself, “How could this have happened?” I thought we loved one another. I pondered on what I could have done wrong. Had he changed his mind, and if so, why? There were so many questions, and definitely no answers because he refused to communicate with me.

I was definitely lost!!! The months leading up to my return to Alabama from school, he and I’d been consistently in contact with one another. After I had returned, we were still communicating, but somewhere in between the “I love you(s)” and high hopes, we turned the page and ended up in different chapters. I was livid. Anyone that knows me personally, knows how difficult it is for me to express myself. Quite honestly, when I told a friend of mine, her exact response was, “What, you told him you love him? Em, I can’t believe it.”

My anger got the best of me. Wherever he was concerned my emotions rose and took hold of me. I began to avoid him. I didn’t want to see him. I didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted no contact at all. I tried to push it all into a place where I wouldn’t have to deal, but by the time I began to settle into my new home, in the DMV, those unresolved issues began to resurface.

Maybe it was my issue for assuming that something would come of us reconnecting, maybe not. Maybe it was his responsibility to inform me, that although he felt what he felt, he was not in a position to give me what I needed, nor take from me, what I was willing to give to him.

Eventually, I grew tired of the perilous routine, so I began to seek comfort from other things. And that’s when I realized something so important! Most of the nights, I lay awake, wallowing in my own self pity, I couldn’t recall much of what had gotten me where I was. All i knew was that I was hurting and couldn’t understand why. Then one day, as I began replaying the night we sat outside talking for hours, and noticed something so familiar.

For nearly a decade this young man and I repeated the same disastrous pattern. No matter how much time passed, each year he and I would reconnect; and time and time again after so much time of being together, he’d leave. I’d be left devastated and hurting, but I guess to him, he was only doing what he knew to do.

I assume it was so easy for me to continue on this ridiculous path with him, because I never saw what we had as finished. I only saw the separation, and gradually began giving each heart ache a different designation. “Distance,” “Wrong Timing,” “School,” “Misunderstanding,” “Relationships,” and so much. The moral is, the EXCUSES kept piling up. Eventually, I succumbed to my own defeat, and once again I retreated.

Does this sound familiar? Have you found yourself repeating unhealthy patterns? It’s all a cycle, and unfortunately it’s a cycle that will continue until you take the initiative to break it. If you don’t take the time to remember, what you’ve already been made aware of, you’ll always choose to forget it, in the presence of what your flesh desires. I’d known for years that he and I were not as good of a fit, as my heart tried to convey to me. I’d known for some time that our choices didn’t reflect the same reality. Yet, with each passing year and with each new bridge connecting the gaps of reasons why not between us, I overlooked the simple truth. The truth that, a future for the two of us together  was just not meant to be. And that my friends was the hardest reality, I wouldn’t fully accept until the year 2020.

From one mended heart to another:

Be very careful of the things you think you can’t do, and give yourself opportunity to do them (failure or not). Be very mindful of the things you know, but you overlook. We often, out of reflex, tend to react to certain situations, and later say things like “something told me,” or “it’s something, i just can’t put my finger on it,” or “I just have a feeling.” Sometimes you just have to trust yourself.

Matthew 26: 41 “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” – Emotions follow actions, they should never lead them. Learn to deny yourself.

And always be very diligent and truthful with yourself. In doing so, you will save you! But remember, it all starts with you. Time will not heal your wounds, if you don’t first choose healing. Peace will not come, if you’re always running towards the storm; and comfort won’t reign if you don’t allow it to take over. It all starts with you; It’s your choice.