Loving Without Restriction

I need to be happy.  No matter what happens with my life, no matter what I end up doing, I need to be happy. 

I need to be happy with myself and I need to be happy with the one I’m with.  My man needs to make me happy…at all times.  I want to be happy at all times.  I want him to be able to fix my bad days, lighten my heavy mood, ease my weary spirit, solve my toughest issues.  I want him to love all over me and kiss away my pain.  In times when I can’t make myself feel better, I want him to come to my rescue. 

I must admit, sometimes I need him.  I need him to be there for me and that’s hard for me to say.  It’s hard for me to admit that I need this man in my life, not out of dependence, but out of desire.  I need his spirit, I need his energy.  I need him.

Although I need him, I refuse to tell him that.  I refuse to let him know my full desire for him.  Why?  I'm not sure.  A pride thing, I guess.  I can’t let him know that my happiness is reliant upon his happiness. 

When I was totally reliant on him in the past, it burned me.  He ended up abusing my love and I just can’t go through that again.  I used to be smitten; now, I’m smarter.  I don’t want to love blindly…I don’t want to get hurt. 

I want to be happy. I want to love freely. I want him to know how much I love him—but at what cost?

Drifting Away

Photo by Rick Sampson

I feel myself pulling away from you. I’m not sure why and I’m not sure when, but I definitely am.  I don’t feel as close to you.  The love is still there, but the emotion is not. 

I have this strong sense right now that I need to focus on me.  I need to be all about me.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that I can’t have you around or that I don’t want you around, but I can’t continue to focus solely on you.  I have to start living for me.

I’m so exhausted and worn out with my life—I need to start doing things that make me happy, that bring life back into my life.  And right now, you are dragging me down.  I’m so concerned with your issues and your problems, that it’s consuming me and my disposition.  I feel as though I have your same issues and that’s not the case.  At least, I can’t let it be the case. 

My emotions have no time to be carrying the burdens of two people.  I have enough happening in my own life that I need to start paying attention to.  We can’t keep having two people focused on you and no one focused on me.  That’s not fair. 

I need to get my life back to a level of fairness…I need balance.  I need to be happy. 

Being without you does not make me happy, so that’s not what I want.  But I’m not sure how to get happiness in my life when I’m focused on you.   

So I’m going to need to be selfish for a while as I focus on the things that I enjoy.  I’m going to start saying “no” to people and start doing what I want to do to bring me joy. 

I need to pull away from you a bit and start pulling in more of myself.

All About Me

Today…it’s all about me and celebrating who I am.  Today, I’m not someone’s girlfriend, I’m not someone’s friend, I’m not someone’s daughter.  Today, I’m me—all by myself!  

Today, I say “I do what I want!”  I go where I want to go, I say what I want to say, I live how I want to live.  Today, I don’t do anything that my boyfriend wants or doesn’t want to do.  Today is about me. 

Today, I don’t have to worry whether I was too mean or too nice, too quiet or too loud, too excited or too calm. Today’s I don’t have to worry about how I come across to other people.  Because today—I truly don’t care.  Today, I care about me.

I care about who I am, what I like to do, what I like to eat, and what I like watch—all of it.  Today, I’m only surrounding myself around the people I want to be around.  I’m not playing nice today and I’m not being someone I’m not.  Today, I’m being me.

Today, I’m going to be confident in who I am as a person and not try to live up to other people’s expectations.  Today, who you want me to be and what you want me to do doesn’t matter.  Today, the only person I listen to is me.  No one else has my best interests in mind like I do.  Today, I only think of me. 

Today, I remember all the unique qualities of me.  All the things that make me different versus everyone else.  All the things that let me know that I was created for a reason.  Today is the day that I embrace those qualities, those mannerisms, those traits. Today, I embrace me.

Today is the day that I feel so blessed.  Blessed to be me…with all my flaws, all my weaknesses, all my blemishes…just me!   

Needing My Partner In My Relationship

I’m over it. I’m over him saying one thing and doing another. Or better yet, saying one thing and not doing anything at all.

Just when I think we’ve made progress in our relationship and moving toward doing what is best for the relationship, something happens that pushes us further apart. And I can’t help but think he is the culprit–I can’t help but think he is pushing us apart. He is not intentionally being destructive to our relationship, but ignorantly. He doesn’t know that his apathy is sabotaging us. 

But intentional or not, I’ve reached my breaking point.  Something must change—his apathy is affecting my happiness.

He rarely follows through with what he says he’s going to do and when he does follow through, it’s only because I’ve asked and reminded him three or four times. He does not take action until something bad has already happened. 

I am over it.

The lack of action and “extra” in our relationship is leading to the demise of the relationship.  You can’t sustain a healthy relationship if you aren’t feeding it and nurturing it.  He and I go on day after day doing the same old things.  We do not add any pizzazz or spice to the relationship.  The relationship is getting boring and we need something to bring us out of our funk, because…

I am over it!

I’m to blame as well; I understand that. But I cannot do something about the relationship by myself. I need help. I want his help. I want him to be by my side, to be my partner. 

I want us to be in it together. 

The Love We Share

The fullness of my love is pushing, pulling, pounding, gushing, throbbing, pulsing, rumbling to break through the walls of my heart.  This love is so intense, so rich, so immense that it’s overwhelming.

This love I have for you smoothes out rough edges of our relationship. This love I have for you tunes out the criticism of the critical.  This love I have for you creates a new world for you and me—a world where it’s just you and I.  A world where we don’t have to answer to anyone or apologize for anything.  A world where the issues we have are the ones we create.  Not issues that have been forced upon us due to circumstance, situation or lifestyle. 

This love is a peace maker and a problem solver.  It’s strives to make our world and our relationship without blemish or fault.  It strives for perfection in an imperfect world, for fairness in an unfair world, for purity in an impure world.  This love radiates the love from our relationship onto the rest of the world.  

This love, though separated from its source, is powerful.  It’s strong and its ready to be freed from the constraints around it.  Like a magnet, it will use as much force as necessary to be united with it’s other half. 

The throbbing desire to be reunited is getting more and more intense.  There were many things prohibited the two sources of this love from meeting, but those barriers are getting more and more trivial. 

This love can only manage to be away from its source for so long. 

Looking Back at Single Life

…Single girl life…it’s had many adventures. I had crushes on boys and tried to get them to notice me. I’ve had kisses with random boys and tried to get them to forget me. I’ve had days and weeks of uncertainty: is he going to call? Does he like me as me as I like him? Why did he stop talking to me?

Single girl life brought many adventures, but the adventures I’ve been through since I’ve been in a relationship have been more intense, more meaningful.

This past weekend was no exception. I decided to go to the wedding of an old guy friend by myself. Wrong! There were so many things wrong with that, but I at least I’ve learned for the future:

1)       Never go to weddings by yourself when you are in a committed relationship

Done. The list stops there because that alone was enough. I had a good time at the wedding and I’m glad I went. I just wish I would have brought my boyfriend with me. The wedding was a grand event; I wish he had been there to experience with me.

Not to mention, weddings put you “in the mood.” Whatever that “mood” is, a wedding will get you there quicker. If you are feeling sentimental, a wedding will heighten that. If you are feeling sexual, a wedding will stimulate that. If you are feeling frustrated, a wedding will let you know what exactly is frustrating you.

So why would sexually-frustrated, sappy me go to a wedding by myself? The jury is still out on that one…

But the adventures that ensued because of my decision were very interesting.  I found my hormones wanted to be around any person with a pee-pee and my heart only wanted to be around one pee-pee and he was 1,000 miles away in Atlanta. So my heart and my hormones waged a war this weekend—I’m proud to announce that my heart won out! I made it through the entire wedding without losing my mind, my morals, or my man! 

But why even put myself through that?! Classic rookie mistake—I will never go to a wedding without my significant other again! This was an adventure I do not want to repeat.

Ready to Make THE Move

We are finally doing it—we are finally talking about moving closer to each other. We are finally making the hypothetical, real. 

My long-distance boyfriend and I are embarking on the next phase of our journey. We’ve done long distance for a very long time and we are over it. We are over the fact that we have to miss key events in each other’s lives. We are over the fact that we can’t sit and watch a basketball game together. We are over the fact that we can only see each other once every four weeks. 

Our frustration with our current situation was exacerbated this past weekend when we were able to spend significant time together. We had so much fun together and couldn’t understand why we weren’t able to be together all the time. People move everyday—whatever we have or do in our respective cities, we can find equivalents to in another city. 

So we are over it—we are going to make a change. That change may not be tomorrow, but it will also not be a year from now. We are now doing the things necessary to make that change sooner rather than later. 

“Goodbye”

Goodbye to loneliness

I am alone no more.

Goodbye to confusion

My curiosity will explore.

Goodbye to sadness

I have joy in my life.

Goodbye to heartache

I have no more strife.

Goodbye to the cold

Refuge I have sought.

Goodbye to the hate

Love has been bought.

Goodbye to the anger

There is peace within.

Goodbye to forever

I have you till the end.

We have finally come to the point where we are willing to sacrifice our current situations in order to make room for a better situation with each other. We always wanted to make the leap, but were never mentally ready to do so...we are finally there!

Far Beyond "Love"

I wish there were a word for how I feel about you right now. I wish there were some way for me to express these intense feelings I have inside. I wish there were some way for you to know my heart, see my heart, feel my heart—I want you to totally understand the love I have for you. 

But it’s not just love...it goes beyond love. It goes beyond the overused term of affection. “Love” is not enough. “Love” is the word I’ve been using to express my feelings for you. Somehow, that word now doesn’t seem as relevant, as important, as powerful. That word has lost its edge. 

I need a word to express the feeling of warmth and comfort that fill my spirit when I’m near you. A word to express the feeling of pure excitement and glee when something good happens to you. A word that expresses the stuttering of my heart when you look at me a certain way. 

I need a word that expresses that I don’t ever want to leave your side. I love you. But it’s more than that. I adore you, I understand you, I know you, I feel you, I see you. I see who you are. I see who you will become. I see the man you’ve become and are still becoming, and I like that person. 

There’s not one word to communicate all the feelings I have filling up my heart.  But there are ways for me to show you and that’s what I want to do more of. I want to show you that you are the only man for me. I want to show you that you are constantly on my mind. I want to show you that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. 

What I’m learning on my journey toward developing our relationship is that the only way for me to truly express how I feel for you is through actions…so that’s what I’m going to do!

One step forward, two steps back…

I know relationship weren’t meant to be perfect but it seems to me that during this time that my boyfriend and I are on this “journey to understanding our relationship,” we would make a conscious effort to do things better than we’ve done before.  The purpose of this journey is to understand the significance of our relationship and what sacrifices we should make in order to strengthen the relationship.  However, if we are angry or frustrated with each other during this journey then it clouds the clarity that we are trying to achieve. 

If we are upset with each other while we are going down this path, then those negative emotions could lead us down a path that we weren’t designed to go. 

But when my boyfriend does insensitive things (consciously or unconsciously), then I have no choice but to be upset and frustrated.   When my boyfriend schedules a time for us to talk over the phone and then misses that time by an hour because he was playing video games, how else am I supposed to feel besides annoyed and angry?

I’m trying to suppress those negative emotions but he’s making it so hard!  Normally, I would give him the benefit of the doubt, but it seems to me that he’s not trying at all.

Or I could be being dramatic and that was just one night, one missed phone call, and one part of the journey.   Maybe, by definition, the journey must have this forward and backward movement. I guess if everything was perfect during this journey, that could also lead us down a wrong path as well….

Maybe what this “journey” we are going down is teaching us about is the journey of life and marriage with each other.  Maybe there must be ups and downs in this journey, and times of angry and frustration in this journey, because that’s realistic to life.  Maybe I’m supposed to be learning how to learn from them and move on from them.

…one step forward, two steps back….ALL part of the journey!