True Love

What is true love?
Everyone has their thoughts or views on it.

What is a soul mate?
Have you found yours? Did you think you found yours at one time?

Do you even believe in any of them?

Over the course of years, I've loved and I've lost that same person I thought I loved. My mistake? I fall too easily. Way too easily. The wrong guys say the right things. Actually, I look past the flaws and see what a person could be. In a way that's my mistake. When the reality is right there in the open.

Times are a lot different now then they were before. Everyone wants to hop in bed right away. Why? Then they cry when they end up pregnant, with a disease, or worse, find out they were being played.

Will finish this in a bit, my OCD is bothering me and I need to fix it.

Okay, it's later and my OCD is okay for the moment being.

Now, back to where we were...ah, yes, love. Our hearts play tricks on us. They really do. They make us see what someone can be and we fall in love with that, and not realizing the things we hate and won't be able to tolerate, be fogged by our perception.

When things happen to me, they happen all at once.
Guy 1 - Was almost everything I could have asked for. Except, well, lets just say, red flags, were red blankets being waved in a hurricane. We'll leave it at that.
Guy 2 - Was nothing I was looking for. I thought, maybe try the complete opposite of what I was looking for. I should have left the first moment I met him. I followed my heart. It got broken. But hey, I learned.

I learned something more important, I learned more about myself. I gained respect for myself. I loved the guy. I know he even loved me. But he liked to listen to people who didn't matter and were only looking at tearing him down because he had what they didn't. I put aside my hopes and dreams to help him with his.

When I actually tore myself away from him, blocking him in every manner possible. It was hard. I wanted to suck up my pride and apologize and beg for mercy. I thought about something. I sucked my pride so much in the short time we were together. He didn't see it.

Anyone who has been here, will completely understand. It took me many years to gain the confidence I have. It took an incredible amount of will power to suck up through all the shit and keep fighting. I wasn't going to allow someone who had negativity surrounding me, to bring deeper than I had ever been. I knew staying with him, that's exactly where I would be.

It's not easy! It takes a lot of power when you say, "I will leave if I'm not happy." To actually doing it. After several weeks of trying to prove myself's worth to him, the negativity was sucking me into a such a downward spiral, I knew if I didn't get out, I wasn't going to make it out alive. I almost didn't. To be with someone who makes you feel like you've never felt, and in the same breath, is the reason for your failure, is hard to see and even harder to escape from.

But I have learned I am a stronger person than I ever thought was possible. So, I cut ALL ties. Out of all the boyfriends I've had. (And trust me, I've had A LOT) He was the worst. Even when I was in high school, my ex's weren't nearly as bad as him. I had heard horror stories of ex's like him. Though, I never had one like him before. Everyone called me lucky. Now, I could see why. The drama that's created after the dissolved relationship, they don't give up.

I'm half a country away from this guy, blocked him from everything, and even put some of my friends on restricted. They have me on restricted. Why? Hmmm, IDK and I personally don't care. (The ones that I know still talk to him) I don't want drama. I have enough of it. I cut it out every chance I get.

The things that mind boggle me the most (and yet are the most laughable), he complains to my friends that I'm nothing but a walking drama series. Hmmmm, okay. My friends laughed. In fact, the only time I really talked to that group of friends, was because of him and what he was doing. (I needed someone to vent to).

His warped sense of reality, (as many of you know I'm an author and I run my own publishing company), was I was only allowed to work during the day and sleep at night. Hmmmm, okay. Taken the above and add the fact I'm a single parent, good luck with sleep. Right? The belittlement was unreal.

(I can go on about the harshness of this relationship but lets continue)

So, chance after chance, I told myself, "if he doesn't quit, I'm gone." One night was just too much. He kept bringing up the past. Saying how I used him. (umm, okay, again) I never asked him for a penny. Oh, and we went out on ONE date during the course of our relationship. So, he didn't quit and I told him goodbye and blocked him.

I cried. After we broke up, I concentrated on the business and my writing, and got so much more accomplished without him bothering me every two second of the day. With him out of my life, things were so much clearer. The respect for myself that I had lost when I was with him, came back stronger than ever. I decided to really concentrate on the business.

Decided to go a different route of getting noticed. Well, I ended up meeting guy 3. Like I said before, I fall fast. Learning from my past, I took things REALLY slow with guy 3. I mean really slow. I wanted to see if he could handle a conversation before we met. We got to know each other better that way. It was very nice.

The one thing I do that scares most off, my stress levels. They can get pretty high. When they do, all I need is someone to hug me and tell me it's going to be okay. I was frustrated one day and sort of took it out on him. (Not meaning to) But, I'm not going to smile and act like everything's okay when it's not. Plus, if the guy can't handle me getting upset, then what's the point? Right? Well, he comforted me. He didn't get upset with me. He didn't throw in towel. He held me as I was breaking down.

Everyone says you can't love more than one person. If you love someone now, you didn't love the ones in the past. That's not true. You fell in love with certain things. Those certain things was what you were looking for at that time that fulfilled your needs. That love made you realize exactly when true love was standing in your face, you would notice. (If you were lucky)

Now, with guy 3, I had been talking to probably a good 10 other guys. I really thought that guy 3 wouldn't go any further than one or two conversations. Guy 3 was really dude 9 out of the 10 other guys. I had high hopes for dude 2 and 5. When in fact, those were the two that didn't to more than 5 conversations. Every time I think that guy 3 is going to lose interest, he does something to show me that I'm his one and only.

What does this mean? It means we fall for the ones we least expect. If we're not paying attention, yes, sorry ladies, your "perfect" guy will be hidden in the "friend zone". Guy 3 wasn't exactly living right down the street either. He was on the other side of the country.

Some people ask, "how do you know?" That's a hard one to answer. Each person is different. I thought I knew with guy 2. I was wrong. We're allowed to be wrong. We're allowed to be wrong on what we think love is. When you say you love someone after a short period of time, and people say, "you're rushing". How would they know? They're not you. Don't let anyone tell you on how you're supposed to feel.

Do I love guy 3? I can't say it. But I do feel strongly about him. (There are still a few more factors I have to see before I can say it) I can see this working and lasting. I can see myself being happy. Not just now, but in the future. Again, people will say, I don't love him because I'm not sure. I didn't say that. I am sure, however, I'm learning from my past.

No matter how bad/bitter/eventful your last breakup was, don't close your heart.
Just be more aware.
Raise the bar and don't lower it.
The right guy will not only touch it, but will walk right over it without flinching.
Don't rush.
If you can't carry a conversation, how are you able to talk to each other if there's a problem?

I will tell you this. Love is when your brain isn't screaming at you. Some wide words were once spoken in high school. Go into a relationship with eyes wide open and when you get married, you have to shut them half way. Meaning, if you can't live with what you see in a relationship, get out. Because when you're married, they're not going to go away. You can't fight over them because why did you marry the person in the first place?

Right now, (and that's all you can do - live in the present), my brain isn't screaming at me. My heart has never been warmer. And, he's fully supportive of what I do. I couldn't ask for a better man.

Don't put pressure on what's going on in the present. If you're happy, only time will tell if everything will work out. So far, I'm happy, and this has been the calmest I've ever been. I see this as a wonderful start to something great.

Now, tomorrow that may change. And if it does, it does. But I walked away with something. I not only walked away with raising that bar a tad bit more, I walked with experiences I had never experienced. That in itself is what life is all about. Loving and cherishing the moments and hope there are more to come.