Unconditional Love…

“It’s about trust, and honesty…and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. It’s about time, and sacrifice, we pay the price…it’s do or die. Unconditional love.”

My musical playlist is so diverse. I have so many different types of music that I love. One of my absolute favorites is 90’s R&B. Love it! That’s back when people were pouring out their heart, crying in the rain, and spilling their soul to get women to fall in love with them. Pride went out the window and these brothas were literally crying on doorsteps spilling their most intimate feelings, trying to win the hearts of these women. I took it back to ‘93 in the song above. Hi-Five, Unconditional Love. It came on in the car on the way home earlier and I got to thinking…How did we get away from this???

I know a lot of people. I’ve dated a lot of people and I’ve circled the runway of the “talking stage” with many, many people. I listen to people talk and share things with me and am constantly asking questions. I truly want to know how such a large group of people have become so content with being single. Like I’ve said before, there’s an ass for every seat, so people who are single are single by choice. Nobody has to be single. Regardless of physical appearance, educational status, employment status, financial status, mental health status…if you want someone, you can land you someone.

I was having a conversation earlier with a man. Granted, I don’t know him that well but he was very, very adamant about not ever wanting to get married again. He was married briefly and said basically it was a one and done for him. I sensed that I struck a nerve with the conversation, so I backed off, but I wanted to ask why. I’m just curious as to why someone would rather be alone (not that alone means lonely) than take another chance at loving and being loved. I mean, I get it. Believe me, I do. For me, being single means I don’t have to worry about someone lying to me, cheating on me, disrespecting me, living off me, feeding my insecurities, and leaving me questioning my value; but for me being single is temporary. I say in jest all the time that I’ll never get married, but you know and I know that’s false. But why do so many of us feel this way?

In my opinion, I think it has a lot to do with insecurity and fear of rejection. Every time someone rejects us, whether it be in your relationship, or by a parent or at a job, or in any situation, it makes us question our value. By this stage in the game, we’ve all been rejected in some form or fashion and it’s likely happened multiple times, by multiple people. Each time, it chips away a little more of our confidence and our feelings of self worth. Completely understandable, we’re human. You opened up your heart to someone, poured out your soul, gave EVERY SINGLE part of you to someone who looked at you and said “what you have to offer me, isn’t good enough.” And it hurts like hell!! Some people choose to not even interact with anyone again on that level. Some people hide the parts of themselves that were criticized. Some people just lie about everything all together, telling their current love interest everything they think they want to hear. Some people bury themselves with work. Some people try to change who they are, who they were created to be, to just be accepted by someone. All of us do something different with that rejection. I’ve been there, done that…got the T-shirt (many, many T-shirts). But in the last 2 years, through my journey of being single I have learned to love myself so much that rejection to me is an absolute blessing. I have accepted that I am who I am and as long as I am trying to be good to people and do the right thing by people then who I am is ok. I have come to accept that not everyone is going to like me, just like I’m not going to like everyone. When someone rejects me now, it actually gives me peace because I know that by them rejecting me…they weren’t really my people anyway. Whatever we are supposed to have, we will have. If we don’t have it, it means it’s not for us. And that’s just simply how you have to look at it.

I have been hurt so many times and have had so much sadness and trauma in my life that some days I didn’t know how I was going to survive it. In spite of that, I still knew that there was someone out there who would love me, flawed as I am, who is worthy of all this love that I have been saving to give to the right person. I just have to be patient, and not be scared to be authentically me. I spent too many years being scared of who I was. I was afraid to be rejected again. But we can’t live like that.

I met a man several months back when I was out with some friends. He approached me and introduced himself and we exchanged numbers. It was obvious that not only did we have a physical connection, but we also had a mental connection. We started off quickly sharing lots of personal stories and details. The conversations were 100% authentic and truthful. He shared so many things with me that I know he didn’t just share with anyone. He was observant about life and enjoyed things like reading a book at a park and going to the Farmer’s Market, and getting pedicures. It was real! And intense. It’s very difficult for me to connect with people on that level and I rarely do, but we did. Fast forward a few months, and he dropped the bombshell on me that he was married. I was crushed! He still wanted to continue to see me, but I just couldn’t do it. I told him and then ended up blocking him on everything because he kept trying to contact me. He had a wife, and he was so completely authentic and real with me. There was no doubt in my mind that I got to see the true version of this man. But…he wasn’t worried about rejection from me. He had his family already. If I rejected him for being who he was, it wouldn’t make a difference. I said all that to say, just imagine what we could give away to people if we weren’t scared of rejection. We have to just love people and meet them where they are. A little understanding and offering a safe place for someone to be who they are, goes a long way. I’m learning as I go❤️