AND JUST LIKE THAT...POOF! GOODBYE.

It has been an amazing summer. I fell in love with someone I've always loved. So much passion and fire and tenderness and laughter and happiness. This was and is my summer of HAPPY! He came in and reminded me how sweet love can be. We are not slated for eternity but we will love each other forever. He has his path and I have mine and in these lovely moments we crossed, connected and loved sweetly and passionately. Now we are moving along and apart.

I am thinking about myself differently these days. I've had a taste of what a loveship could be and I want that for myself. I need that for myself. To be loved by a good man is divine. I want to be wanted and needed and adored and cared for. I want to be considered above all others. I want to be waited for. I always knew I had a great capacity for love. I can feel the energy of love surging through my veins. Yes I have lots of layers and walls and barriers, but for the right man...the divine right man, there lies an oasis...strong, true, faithful and abiding love. I cast my pearls before enough swine...God knows I have! This summer has given me a chance to see myself in Love's mirror and I liked it. I loved the touching of someone close, I loved waking up with someone dear to me. I loved holding hands while we slept. I never had that kind of connection with anyone. I want that. I've seen the beauty in it and I want that.

So here I am contemplating my dating life. A life that did not not seem possible before this summer. But now I am ready. REALLY READY to step out and be some one's love. This Stella definitely got her groove back! I am not skiddish about sex with someone or being seen naked, my passion as a woman is not only intact but bubbling over. I have rediscovered my sensual self. I owe this reconnection to this summer. My smile is brighter and wider, my heart is joyful and I happily step into Love's light. I know that the man for me is on his way. This summer has returned to me the gift of passion and intimacy. I have spread my wings and soared!

Down separate paths we go to find our heart's desires...

And just like that... POOF! Goodbye.

The Love Story comes to an end.

DON'T KNOW WHY...SMOKEY ROBINSON

I love this song by Norah Jones. When I first heard it, it instantly became a favorite. But hearing Smokey Robinson's version takes it to a new level. He is LUSH! LUSH! LUSH! and sooooo silky smmmmooooth! It has soul and dimension... rarely a remake is better than the original. Anyway this is how I am feeling today. You know I love a good song...adds to the soundtrack of my life.

TRUE LOVE TUESDAY: THE LOVE INVESTMENT

It costs something whether you stay or walk away. It hurts all the same no matter what you do. So perhaps what to do is to press on. Maybe just up ahead the way becomes smoother. You won't know until you press on...keep it moving. Love does not hurt. What hurts are the decisions we make in love, that have nothing to do with love at all. It has everything to do with personal baggage and clouded thinking and yes fear.

Love only requires that you be ready and open to receive it. Love waits on welcome not on time....A Course in Miracles. Love does not desert us...we desert love. Love itself is not hard. What is hard is relinquishing your control of whatever you think you might have. It is about self preservation. Who the hell wants to be hurt? But here's the thing, if you don't invest in love then life itself is meaningless.

Investing in love requires a commitment to stay in it. Stay connected, to tear down all your barriers and safety nets. It requires you to reach for each other in nakedness of thought, soul and being. You have to suspend doubt. You have to forgive everyday, every hour, every minute. We are human and we choose badly all the time. We run away, we fuck up, we trip, we fall, we get back up. Love never dies. Love never ends. Love says I wait for you to invite me in.

Love has arrived and I am inviting it in. It is more than I could have dreamed up and yet not enough. I have to be in love for its sake and do what love requires...welcome it. Invest in it fully. This is new ground for me. There are no maps. What I knew of love before does not apply here in these moments. I am a new woman in love. I am brave and afraid all at once. I am happy and apprehensive. It is my path. I am growing. I am challenging hard earned beliefs and whatever happens I will be renewed.

I am answering the questions: Who are you? and what do you want?

The LOVE STORY continues...

LOVETALK

TODAY 12:30PM EST

DR. LEAH AKA THE "SANITY FAIRY"

SINGLEMOMMYHOOD.COM

BREAKING UP WITH THE RIGHT PERSON

718-766-4895

STRUGGLING IS NOT DIVINE

When you are in a place of constant struggle with anything or anyone, for me it simply means let go. What I am struggling with is not for me. When things are received or sought with ease, I realize they are meant for me. I am not suggesting hard work doesn't pay off. Or that we shouldn't work hard for the things we want and need. But struggling or to struggle with is not divine.

I am struggling with someone I love dearly. It is energy draining. I am struggling with someone Else's issues on how to live in the world. I am still solid and committed to to the way in which I want to love and be open and living with a full heart. What I am not interested in, is a thought process that hasn't garnered any success for the person claiming to have a different way of thinking. If that thinking is so radically different and closer connected to GOD? Then why are you struggling in so many areas in your life? I am not making a judgement, just asking the obvious questions. How has that thinking brought you peace and happiness? If you hold onto a thinking that is isolating and it isolates you from the very things you say you want then perhaps a new thinking direction needs to emerge.

There are many who believe that to retreat from the world and all its trappings is the way to go. That you can't have real harmony if you are in the world. They believe to end struggle and conflict is to be in community with like minded folks only. I am so not with that thinking. The world for me is wondrous and a beautiful place. If there is to be harmony and peace and love and joy it begins in my mind. It begins with me. I have to want those things inspite of noise in the world.

I do not welcome struggle. I am not interested in a myopic world view. I am not interested in anyone clipping my wings and saying don't fly too high. I am not interested in someone telling me know thy place. I am not interested in defined roles and conformity.

Struggling is not divine. I am letting go. I have to answer the questions: WHO ARE YOU? AND WHAT DO YOU WANT? When I pose these simple questions, the thing I am struggling with clearly is an obstacle and barrier to the life that I want, and to that end I have to stand in my truth and release the struggle.

FAITH FORWARD FRIDAY: BREATHING THE BREADTH OF THE OTHER...HAKI R. MADHUBUTI

same love different decades
we've seen the sun
rise
melting loud promises of our twenties
the young do not love carefully,
the young innocently love, often
the young live with wishes of no boredom.

you are mature young
a decade past romanticism,
years on the other side of searching,
months away from intimate hunger,
weeks from assigning blame,
days removed from contemplating advice from
relatives,
within seconds confirming, we are ready!

these are your commitments:

a. listen first, listen last, communicate
b. when angry, hit the couch in private instead of each
other.
c. measure each other's pulse seven times a week; do
not buy a pulse meter.
d. divide the housework
B.C (Before Children)
you 1: garbage, dishes, bedroom, car, kitchen,
mopping, weekly wash, cooking, shopping,
no pets.
you 2: living room, bathroom, halls, cooking, car,
sweeping, shopping, weekly wash, kitchen,
argue for a cat.
A.C. (After Children) revise everything
e. encourage growth in each other. intelligence may
marry stupid, but brains don't stay with pinheads.
f. parent against the culture; if you spend $100 on
Nintendo, your children will become what you
deserve.
g. do not take current beauty for granted. big eaters
are wrong. fat is not pretty nor healthy.
h. grow into greater love, nothing stays the same.
challenge the beauty in each other. fight for
understanding.

we've seen the sun
rise
in you
knowing the bones in her back
feeling the tenderness of his feet,

same love, different decade,
breathing the scent of each other
breath to breath
sustaining the music of bright expectations
life confirmed. complete.
one.

author: Haki R. Madhubuti,
HeartLove
Wedding and Love Poems

THE LONG GOODBYE...

GOD does send us what is needed and what we ask for. When we get what we asked for, sometimes we realize that more is needed...more work on our part, more of something that compliments our spirit in ways that were overlooked. Sometimes GOD gives us what we ask for because what we want is not what we need and nothing explains that better than getting what we say we want and realizing we were wrong. It is a tough lesson and sometimes it takes a lot of time figuring that out. But there are gifted moments when the reality of our lives and our choices tell us what we said we wanted was wrong and what is needed is still to come.

I came across this song by India.Arie that is haunting me. And I know GOD is talking to me as GOD often does with music and art and well, burning bushes.

I say I love you
You say that's kind
You don't wanna get too close
You loved me crazy
I lost my mind

Listen...

You're everything I never wanted
And all the things I didn't need
This ain't who I wanna be
You don't have to stay forever
I'll take passion over pride
Full moon, high tide
Let's make it a Long Goodbye
Tomorrow we'll pick up the pieces
Try to mend our broken lives
Soft kiss, sweet lies

Let's make it a long goodbye

Yeah...
I cried in silence
I lived through you
I've given everything away
And maybe I can learn to fall
For someone who can give me all
The things I"m not afraid to lose

Whenever you see lonely faces
That's where I'll be
Don't cry for me, no no no no
Don't cry for me, don't cry for me yeah yeahhhh

Hey, don't cry for me, no no no
I'm gonna be okay