Hey ya’ll! Rounding out this month of celebration with the talk of love. You already know that the village and I have these deep conversations about everything. Most recently the talk of love came up. With a village member getting married, honey we have to celebrate the love. I know that we as a village love each other, those are my sista girls, my brothers, I know that my children love me and that my family in general loves me, but sometimes you need to connect to a different type of love. The type of love that gives you butterflies in your stomach, hot flashes, cold sweats, that glow (not pregnancy). The type of love when you have found a connection with a significant other, that type of love. Almost all of us crave it and almost all of us put limits on it. How sad?!

I’ll admit I’d allow past situations, family, friends, social media, media in general to put limits on the way I was loving and how I was receiving love. People give us these rules about who we should and should not accept as far as love is concerned. They’ll tell you if he loves you he’ll do this, if she loves you she won’t do that. All the while they are actively accepting the very things they are telling you to deny. So you’re over here in dating hell because you can’t seem to find someone to meet all these prescribed components and they are at home getting that good old loving feeling. You turn into the bitter lady with 12 cats, permanent resting bitch face (Google it), mad at the world because you have accepted the opinions of others regarding your loving.

Now don’t get me wrong, not all the advice you will receive is bad or shouldn’t be taken into consideration. What I am saying is YOU, yes, YOU are the final factor in how you will give and receive love. It’s up to you to determine how your love grows, who you are willing to give it to and who you are willing to accept it from. Remember all these love test and videos and books from self-proclaimed experts are OPINIONS. You have the option of opting out of someone’s opinion. In my ‘opinion’ the best thing you can do while love finds you or you find it, is find yourself. Love on you!

So what did I do? I was like, I’m not loving nobody. I’m just going to date so I can get some free meals and drinks, see a couple shows, maybe some gifts, I was cool on what everybody was telling me to look for in order to find love. As I took time off from my search, I began to love on me, doing things for me, accepting me for who I really am. Then BAM one messed up date and I was like forget dating I’m just doing me. I was telling the story of the messed up date to someone and this guy overhead and was laughing. How rude?! But every day after that I saw this guy and we joked and laughed about things and got to know each other. Finally we meet up and the rest is history. Just kidding, we were both exiting love gone wrong and were looking for a good time (that’s some truth, we both we’re looking for a good time, lol). As we hung out more, I was told by my girls I started to have this glow, I smiled more, I was relaxed. I didn’t really recognize any change until the day I looked over at him and was like damn this is my dude. We laugh together, we annoy each other, we have deep convos about life, and we both are super silly. He wasn’t what everybody was telling me I should look for, but he was exactly what I needed. He filled in that gap that I had convinced myself was not one I was going to need to refill. I was excited and nervous at the same time. Do ya’ll know that feeling?

In my process though I had become a selfish lover. My love came with restrictions and if you messed up, I had the option of withholding my love. Let me tell you, that’s not the way to love. I really had to pray and reflect on my selfish ways. I had to determine that no matter what, if I said I was going to love this man I could not place boundaries on it, it had to be free and clear. As much as we want the person we love to know our love language we have to remember that we are all imperfect people, learning this thing called love together. I had to re-organize my management style of love, I had to shred those old files I’d stored up in reference to love, in order to open to the new possibilities of someone loving me and me giving them love in return.

How are you giving and receiving love? Are you open to love not coming in the package you thought it would? Whether the love is for a lifetime or a season, appreciate it, acknowledge it, embrace and enjoy it. I know I am.