My Love Manifesto: When the Heart Goes “A-Ha!”

Today’s emoticon – “Mercy & Merlot”…Because sometimes you need a little of both.

In the words of Chrisette…”And then it comes to me, like an epiphany”…

Don’t you just love those “a-ha” moments that come along and knock you on your arse at the exact, appropriate moment. Normally, those “a-ha” moments aren’t “a-ha” at all. You’ve known this seemingly new jewel of information all along. You just repressed it to suit the moment. Kind of like when you figured out that eating healthy might actually be a good idea. Broccoli’s always been nutritious, you just wanted that beef meximelt from Taco Bell at 2:35am. It is what it is, people.

My pastor once told me that a woman should never have her heart broken. I didn’t even chuckle at the notion. Instead, I thought to myself…I agree. What he meant is that women (and men) were never meant to be involved in this relentless cycle of failed attempts at love. Society paints the picture that after 50 tries or so, you finally get it right. My dear friend always tells me that I might have to kiss a few frogs. Well, I’m not into inter-species make out sessions.

You’ve seen He’s Just Not That Into You, right? My entire frame of thinking is in the “exception” zone. Why? Because I am the exception. I refuse to wade head first through a sea of BS to achieve the elusive “dream”. But, seeing as how I really just started dating like two days ago, my approach to this whole corrupted dating game was ridiculously skewed and quite far from what I had outwardly voiced for so many years. The other night I sat down and had a serious urge to cry and write. I did both.

In my journal I wrote, “I want someone who is in persistent, perpetual pursuit of my heart. The earthly representation of God’s love. And, His love doesn’t make you wonder. It doesn’t leave room to create crazy scenarios because it’s so over-powering, so all-consuming and so reassuring, you have an unyielding peace and safe haven to love freely.”

I thought to myself, “Will I ever truly have that?” Nothing to date has been consistent enough to make me feel like anything even close to this is possible, but, then came the “a-ha” moment. You’re always going to have occasional doubts about a certain thing. It’s human nature. What you can’t do is allow your doubts to guide your decisions. I was allowing my fear to cripple my true desires. When your desires are crippled, you begin to bend your standards until they fit into the zone of “comfort”.

To take a cheesy line from Grey’s Anatomy, that I literally just heard as I’m sitting here writing this blog, “When you feel frightened, get inspired”.

When you get frightened thinking about how hard it is to uphold your standards, thinking that you might be missing out on something, get inspired thinking about how you’ll be happy….and not just comfortable.

So…I urge all of you to create a “love mission statement”, and stick to it because you deserve to get exactly what you want. Nevermind the picture that’s been painted for everyone else. You’re not that artist, and it doesn’t fit into your frame.

This message has been brought to you by the sponsors of GROWTH.

Till we read again,

Kimberly