The Rude Awakening; Who to Love This Valentines Day

How old AM I?! Better yet...how old is my heart? My entire life I've romanticized true love. Countless hours wasted on day dreams of being in a perfect relationship with Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome, molding myself into whatever it was I thought a suitor would admire and losing a piece of myself each time. This Anti-Valentines playlist is a compilation of the songs I picked up the pieces to...only to find that none of them fit together.

My "Cowboy Casanova," picture a cowboy toy commercial: picture perfect, comes with a genuine cowboy hat, the BIGGEST belt buckle you've ever seen and real cowboy boots with spurs!...horse not included. Carrie Underwood nailed it when she sings:

"he'll tell you nothin' but lies"

"he's a devil in disguise, a snake with blue eyes...you better run for your life"

Anyone else proficient in ignoring red flags and their own intuition? Funny how we suppress our own feminine instincts because of the story we told ourselves, we thought to be true. Suppress our feminine instincts because we're told that we're imagining things, or that we're crazy. Confirmation of my, "crazy" came in the form of a phone call...so I left him, the dog and the apartment. As I drove away, and for several weeks later I blasted Miranda Lambert's "Kerosene" out that old Fords speakers.

A perfect-it is what it is melody. A dream, a story, a belief torn apart by a single lie, left me to pick up the pieces and start again. Some days were easy and some days were dark and hard, however Kerosene was there to get me back to the place where I could say...."whatever."

Oh all the stupid boys. Unfortunately, they're a dime a dozen perhaps I should've capitalized or bolded the word "boys" because that is the key point...they are boys. Through all of the heartache and life lessons I've learnt the difference between what a boy and a man is; stupid.

The lyrics of Stupid Boy by Keith Urban rebuilt my spirit after allowing myself to be pressed under a stupid boys thumb, to break me down in order to build himself up. Unfortunately this was not a single occurrence. You see when a child is starved for love they idolize it and imagine what it is without truly knowing the truth behind it. So here we go looking for love in all the wrong places, painting myself into whatever character I needed to be for the boy in my life...whoa, how unhealthy is that? Who are you?

Hear the message in these lyrics:

"you can't fence that in...it's like holding back the wind"

As women our spirits cannot be fenced in and will continue to blow like whispers in the wind. I found so much empowerment in Keith's words. As sad as it is to get caught in an emotionally abusive relationship the feeling of finding your strength, after facing all of the fears that go hand in hand of such situation is undeniably, liberating.

"it took a while for her to figure out she could run, and when she did...she was long gone"

Turns out, I didn't learn my red flag lesson and continued to suppress my womanly gift of intuition. This was it though, the straw, or shall we say the relationship, that broke the camels back. I had done an insane amount of personal growth. Everything from daily meditations, hot yoga to the best psychologist I could find. I recognized the need for change, I put in the time and effort and that's exactly what I got...a profound change, ultimately increasing my confidence, and intuition. So, once again I walked away from my home with all of my belongings listening to some of our strongest woman in todays music. Including Katy Perry-Part of Me, Pink-There You Go, Icona Pop-I Love It, and Ariana Grande-Problem.

Like I stated earlier, that was the straw that broke the camels back and a new awareness of my personal life patterns suddenly became clear. Specifically my 3 year relationships...ALWAYS! Seriously, the longest relationship I've ever had was with my cat, 6 years until he slipped out of the window and died. I pledged to myself that I would spend the next 3 years devoted to me. I did it! It's 2021! However I never did stop romanticizing about that prince in shining armor, longing for love and feeling incomplete. I guess after so many years of tricking and lying to yourself you get pretty good at it. One thing that never changed was my spiritual and self-awareness practice and I continue to hold that as a solid foundation of who I am.

"Now look at me, I'm sparkling. A firework, a dancing flame. You won't ever put me out again" -Part of Me, Katy Perry

My 3 years was up. Love crazed, I met a few boys that got me caught in a whirlwind and one specifically that changed my life forever. I romanticized about them all, never actually seeing their true colors and still not having confidence or knowing my worth, cost me a lot. The one that I truly desired, I never felt good enough for so I continued to spiral myself into the whirlwind of boys to only lose my self completely and be washed up by the storm. I learnt what I wanted...and what I didn't. Yet here we are again painting myself into what I think a man wants. Awareness is key; even if it is painful. I found myself dreaming of this man, so ultimately he HAD to be the one I was dreaming of...literally. Days, months and almost a year had passed when I finally found the courage to tell him how I felt.

"I don't care! I love it!" -I Love It, Icona Pop

Now, I must say this...the awareness that I was painting myself for a man was there, and daily I questioned myself, am I repeating a pattern? Have I imagined this all in my head? When I say imagined, this is next level. I felt connected to this man ethereally , on a spiritual level. The night I found out, "It's not like that," I allowed my heart to cry, to realize that I had actually made myself love sick. I allowed my dreams of a "fairy tale" love to die, of my child like heart and imagination to rip itself out of me. To realize all of the thoughts I had engaged in and wasted so much energy on. I poured my heart into my journal:

"The imagination of a child is seen as innocence. Yet to carry it thru life, a heavy burden to bare. The rise and fall of your chest, the comfort and relief that you were right there...torn away. Believing full heartedly: not physically but dimensionally. As my head sinks into the pillows, the cold reality of just pillows, a stillness of peace washes over me. Yet the world seems a lot less magical tonight. And as I lay here feeling the cracks of imagined feelings tear my heart open in the most beautiful way, I lay witness to the death of a child's imagination. An experience stolen yet clenched to; that a life revolved around it. Feeling it. Releasing it. Finding peace within it, knowing that I am growing into my highest self."

As if to accentuate, as I'm closing my journal it opens to a previous entry..."What if I took all the energy and thoughts of romanticizing love and put them towards myself. What would that look like?"

I awoke in the morning with a different attitude, a sense of a new beginning. There was actually nobody left to love, but myself. After receiving the email for this challenge, creating the playlist of all my past breakup songs it all came flooding back to me. I never truly felt good enough because I wasn't good enough for myself, I knew I could be more. I was letting myself down.

"Yeah, sometimes ya gotta lose 'til ya win"-Little Miss, Sugarland

Valentines? Anti-Valentines? It's a love holiday and I celebrate. Celebrate this new love I have for myself. Love myself into the person I've always dreamed of being, to achieve all of my aspirations, to be the best version of myself. Celebrate the release of a lifelong pattern; stop searching for love in all the wrong places and start putting into the person that needs it most...me. If you don't truly love yourself...how can anyone else?