He comes to the door with this humongous bouquet of flowers. I’ve gotten roses before probably picked up at the nearest supermarket but it was obviously nothing like this. I was speechless which is rare for me.

Before I met my husband my dating life wasn’t anything to write home about. I was awkward as a teenager and insecure throughout my twenties and thirties. When I met the ex-husband he was the first guy that really liked me that the relationship was easy.  Kind of love at first sight BS. The biggest problem was I so insecure in myself that I couldn’t see the signs. He grew up very different then me and our core values were no where near in sync. Years later my mother would say that he was a nice guy but not a giving guy. He wasn’t good enough for you but we knew at the time you’d never hear anything we said. Understand our original wedding date was called off because I suspected cheating. Needless to say I was right.

The next relationship was all my alter ego Raven.  I say she is my dark side and at that time in my life I had a very big dark side. So hear is a girl pretending to be something she’s not and meets this biker guy who is trying to change his life to better himself. It was a perfect combination at first. He needed my stability I liked his security and dark side. However as time goes on the person he was pretending to be couldn’t win the fight and the person I was pretending to be fizzled out.  Now Raven is a reminder tattooed on my wrist of a time in my life that is very important and yet let go.

My second date again like the first lasted for an extensive time. 6 1/2 hours and we never had a lull in the conversation again. I laugh because I feel like I take truth serum when I talk to him.  He asked me such a profound question yesterday “are you telling me these things so I’d walk away, if I was going to walk away?” My reply was “NO I want you to know all of me, my mistakes, my heartbreaks, my truth”.  You look around at a friend or parent someone in your life that has that perfect relationship. That they’ve been together for years and they still truly love each other completely. Don’t we all deserve that? I really want that. I want to share the remainder of my life with someone who wants to be with me, who I can share the happy times and sad times.  The person who knows everyone of my weakness but would never use it against me. I want to be as giving and loving as I really am at my core to someone who wants to be on the receiving end. I want someone who hugs me in the morning because I woke up next to them. Someone who comes home in the middle of the day to surprise you to take you for an afternoon stroll. Someone who sleeps next to you at night that your grateful to have there each night. Don’t we all deserve that? Isn’t that what we all look for? Isn’t that love?