Love has been everything to me growing up. I’ve always been in love with love. It has been something I’ve always wanted and believed I would have by 27, which I’ll be in May, and married with more kids by 30. When I think of love I always had this fairytale picture painted in my head and it has not been what I thought it would be.

The love I’ve had in my life has been somewhat a dysfunctional kind. You know the love that you start off thinking is going to be forever but then true colors start to show. In fact it’s not love at all, it’s lust and that’s why in the beginning everything seems to be picture perfect. Suddenly the love you thought you had begins to mistreat you, use you, manipulate you, disrespect you and slowly break you down. It’s nothing like what you’ve imagined it to be. It’s not as beautiful as you thought it would be but instead it was painful and took awhile to pick up the pieces that were shattered and go on with life. I came across a few people I thought had the potential to love until they also betrayed me in ways they said they wouldn’t. Yet I still believed there was a love out there made for me and only me.

BUT yesterday something came over me while talking to one of my best friends about the possibilities of finding love and her being excited about it. I was happy for her and the path she’d taken that has opened up her heart to love but for me, my reaction was, “I’m just not excited about finding anyone like I used to be.” After saying it, it sounded sad but for once it was true. I’m not excited about the idea of love. I’m over trying to love another person and not having those feelings reciprocated. I’m over people telling me to wait on them, be patient and keep your faith then maybe one day they’d be mine. That should have been a clear sign that I’m not really into you but I love the things I get to do to you. At this point I don’t see myself fully trusting someone because the trust I once had for the ones I cared about have been broken on multiple occasions. It’s like the little hope I had left vanished and I never thought I’d see the day but then I had to stop and really think about it.

Until recently I didn’t fully know what loving myself meant. Being that I didn’t completely love myself there was no way someone else was going to love me the way I deserved. I created the pattern when it came to the guys I was dealing with. I made it okay for them to treat me the way they did. I was quick to say yes and help them out with whatever they needed. Spending my last to make sure they were good instead of thinking of myself. I’d let one mistake slide, then it would turn into two and then into three until eventually they didn’t care about the mistakes they were making because they knew I’d forgive them anyway. I didn’t know it at the time but I was giving these boys the tools to continue to take advantage. I wanted to be able to say I loved someone so bad that I was willing to lose who I was. I was willing to settle for less because at least I’d have someone to call mine.

As of lately I’ve been so focused on working on me that now anything that makes me feel less than I don’t want to deal with. I don’t want to deal with looking for love in another person. The only person I want to love is my son and myself. I want to be so focused on loving me that when love does come my way I won’t have any doubts about it. There won’t be this feeling deep down in my gut and my heart telling me this isn’t right. The butterflies in my stomach will continue to flutter whenever I see his face or hear his name until the day I die and into the after life. I won’t ever have to worry about losing myself because I’ll know my worth and how I should be treated. He’ll know to build me up and to never let me down. He will be a man placed in front of me by the man above because he knew it was finally my time but RIGHT NOW isn’t my time when it comes to another. So I’ve decided to continue choosing me.