Love is what you make it

I am ready for love.

I so am.

After years of relegating myself to short couplings which have no hope for a future, I want exactly that.

It’s amazing. My second ex (of only four long term relationships) has always told me that I can’t run from myself. You see I have been fantasizing about leaving Jamaica since I was about 17 years old. It took me 10 years and the third overseas job offer to finally leave.

And what have I run into? Me.

That subdued latent nesting desire of my adolescence is now the strongest it has ever been. Many things are different, as they must be with the onslaught of heartaches and wisdom along the way; but alas many things remain.

I still think that there is nothing better than love.

How can I say that after having my heart trampled on? Call it Leonine passion, childish enthusiasm, a false sense of eutopia, or just plain old resilience, but I am just ready to try again.

I am ready to find a deep love that goes beyond the superficial, the kind that makes you laugh till you cry and cry until you life. The kind that makes you want to be a better person because you see your love trying to be better for you. One cloaked in mutual security and commitment, respect, and adoration and devotion that (borders on but never gets there) gets close to worship.

A man whose scent I can smell on my way home, because I know, without a doubt, he will be there.

Someone who challenges me and supports interchangeably.

Someone who is not afraid of my strength and courage and the loudness of my Leonine roar because he is confident that he is king of my human heart.

Someone who shares a spiritual commitment to finding God individually and sharing Him together.

Someone who loves me not for who I can be or should be, but who I am.

I find that I have a way of walking away from the men who can offer me all of my heart’s desires and give my affection to people who’s presence is fleeting.
I think its because I am afraid of being hurt. It’s easier to kind of be nice and hopeful about a man who you know is just making a short rest stop on his way to a distant town. It’s quite like pouring your heart out to a taxi driver as opposed to working out your problems systematically with a therapist. You dont have to commit. And you certainly don’t give your heart.

I am dating a man with whom I have passionate feelings for, but with whom a future seems rife with strife. But I am lonely. So I settle.

I realize I cannot ever find perfection in a mate. Love, like life itself, is what you make it.

Shit! I just realized something- I am afraid to need anybody.

I can stand truly, madly, and deeply in love but I am afraid to actually need somebody because I am afraid to lose again.

My last relationship did a number on me. But more than that, I did a number on myself waiting for him to wise up. As dumb as it sounds, waiting seemed to be the only thing I could have done. In the process, I have lied so much to myself and to the men I have dated that sometimes, I don’t even remember the truth.

I don’t know if I will ever stop loving him. I haven’t lived long enough yet. I know one thing- I pity him.

Maybe it was pity that made me love him in the first place. I saw someone who was perfect on the surface, but I saw his wounds hidden and felt I could love them away. I had wounds of my own, and there was co-dependence. We became best friends, and lovers, and executioners in the same sentence. But cats have nine lives and this Leo isn’t ready to die.

I have died a few deaths in the process but I have a few lives left in me.

As I write this, I am contemplating the attention of a few men who have expressed their interest. Two have even mentioned marriage.

I am still cautious about such finality, but I know I will have to choose one with whom I will pursue the walk of discovery of what the future COULD have in store.

I am still so very confused.

And I am lonely. So lonesome I could cry (and sometimes do).

Maybe this is the point where I should let go, and let God.

I miss home.