and how I attracted the love of my life
A year ago today, the algorithm gods blessed me and matched me with the love of my life on Hinge. While in bed with my love last night, I said to him, “A year ago, we didn’t know we existed and now look at us. It’s Monday and we are laying in bed post-making love, after a busy night with the little one at Dave and Buster’s.”
I can’t believe this is my life now.
If you told me a year ago that I would end up with a kind, loving, strong, funny, incredible man and human who happens to look exactly like men I would fantasize about in my early 20s (Ryan Gosling, Ryan Reynolds – HI), my partner in crime, my best friend, my lover, the love of my life… I would laugh at you. I would say, “Are you on drugs? If so, can I have some?”
I’ve been pretty open with my readers about my struggles with dating and single mom life post-divorce between my writing and two full seasons of Sex and Jersey City – The Podcast. It was not a secret that it was quite the journey. A journey filled with pain, lessons, heartbreak, growth, self love, and sprinkled with a little fun and drama.
There were times where I lost hope that my king was out there. Acceptance that maybe I would have to go through this lifetime by myself. I was OK with that because I would much rather do this life on my own than settle for less than what I deserved.
I look back at all the shit I’ve been through – the divorce, all the bad dates, the ghosting, the disappointment – and I am so so thankful that all happened. Truly. If I didn’t go through all the bad stuff, I would have never grown to love myself and recognize HIM. My king. The one person that deserved me, my wholeness, and my butt.
I am so thankful that it never worked out with anyone else. Those late nights where I stayed up crying and wondering why it didn’t work out with so-and-so led me to figure my shit out. Led me here to this moment where I get to say.
I am so happy. I am so in love.
I truly believe that we attract who we are and who we believe we deserve.
This took me years, a failed marriage, and multiple shitty relationships to understand. I blamed everyone but myself. “There are no good men out there,” I would say.
All that changed the moment I took responsibility for myself – my conditioning, my behaviors, and my lack of self worth that led me to choosing the wrong people.
During the early days of the pandemic, I had no choice but to face myself and reckon with my role in the failure of my marriage and relationships. I spent months unpacking all the feelings that I suppressed for years. After my divorce, I essentially numbed the pain with work, dating, partying, and empty relationships.
I thought I was Samantha Jones from Sex and The City: single & fabulous.
But it wasn’t sustainable. A year before the pandemic, I stopped dating altogether because I felt too empty inside. What really saved and healed me was the work I did during lockdown.
In a way, the pandemic saved me. It forced me to work on myself and my shit. Therapy, meditation, journaling – I was doing it all. There was an AHA moment. The fuckboys weren’t choosing me, I wasn’t attracting fuckboys. I was CHOOSING them. Because deep down inside, I didn’t really believe that I was worthy of being loved by a high-value man. I didn’t love myself enough to tell a man with literal red flags all over him, “Nah, I’m good”.
Mind-blowing.
At 37 years old, I realized that I was a fraud. I’d been preaching self love and confidence for years, but here I was accepting breadcrumbs and poor behavior from some schmuck who wasn’t even that cute. Does this sound familiar?
So I dove in, head first. Trauma work, inner child meditation, exploring childhood conditioning, talk therapy, reprogramming how I spoke to myself. I woke up every morning and sat in front of the mirror and repeated affirmations.
“You are ENOUGH.”
“You deserve to be loved.”
It was hard, I’m not going to lie. It was hard and it still is; I am and will always be “doing the work” but I knew that if I didn’t finally love myself, then who will? Who the fuck will love me if I don’t love myself? Does it really even matter if someone else loves you when you can’t love yourself? Like, truly?
I realized that so much of the pain from my past relationships came from expecting my partners to make me happy. Putting that much pressure and expectation on another person is unfair; another person cannot and should not make you happy.
They can add to your happiness or subtract from it for sure, but they cannot make you feel whole. Only you can. So I knew that if I didn’t feel whole that I would never really be happy, regardless of my relationship status.
Another AHA moment.
I grew so much in that time. Then the universe had one more test for me in the form of a giant walking red flag. I am not going to really dive into that whole thing right now, maybe in the future. But long story short, I passed the test!! I got like a 60%, but that was good enough for the universe. I was brave and I said, “Enough is enough. I will not accept bad behavior, I will not accept breadcrumbs.”
I wasn’t too much or too needy. I didn’t need to change who I am be loved. I deserve to be loved. I am whole. I am worthy. Any man would be lucky to even be in my presence. I told myself over and over again. I validated myself. I didn’t seek external validation for once in my life.
I fucking did that. I believed in it too.
My therapist gave me homework one session and told me to write down all the qualities I was looking for in a partner. I remember being like, “Huh? You want me to write a grocery list for a man?” I took out a sheet of paper and went to work.
- Funny, kind, hard working, passionate, spiritual, fit, health conscious, loves to eat and try new restaurants, adventurous, fun, family oriented, affectionate AF, sexual, emotionally intelligent, stylish, creative, great with kids, wants a family, playful, has great hair, and abs would be super cool.
I looked at the list. Another AHA moment.
I am all those things, I am literally each and all of those things. At that moment, looking at the list of attributes I was looking for in my partner, I realized I was all those things and a big moment of self love swarmed my body. I felt it.
It was like someone reached out and hugged me. I smiled. I was so proud and in love with the person I’d become. How cool is that? Really knowing and loving yourself fully. So much that it makes you feel warm inside. As I write this, the feelings swarm my body again.
I put the list away. 3 days later, I went on Hinge and the rest is history.
True fucking story.
And it’s only the beginning of it.
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