This Thing Called Love

As it turns out, Love is just Love. There are no different kinds of Love. Love just is. There are different ways in which we express Love, but Love is just one.

I used to think that there were different kinds of Love, like the love you feel for your spouse or significant other and the love you have for a child. But I was wrong. It's all one and the same Love.

Love, real Love, is not based on need. It is not rooted in fear. It is not convenient. It is not a trap or something that binds you. Love is not a toy. Love cannot be forced.

Love is a verb. It means action. You make a decision, and you make a choice to commit, for better or worse.

I had it all wrong, but I have it right now.

I do not know that I will ever be with a man again, but this doesn't scare me or make me sad at all. I can't explain how I feel or how exactly I came to this wonderful place I'm in now, and I wish I could. Perhaps with time I'll be able to better explain and articulate it.

What I do know clearly and without a doubt is this:

I have been made complete, not lacking in anything. I am full.

I have my trials and I have my days, but in the midst of these: There is true joy. There is Love, and this is what gets me through. It is what keeps me smiling. It is what drives me and what I live for.

Love was inside of me, and it came out of me in the form of my daughter Amelia.

Love will bear fruit in you too, if you let it. I wonder what form your Love will take when it comes out of you.

Lessons Learned in Single Motherhood

I never imagined I would be a single mom. I can honestly say that this isn't the kind of thing you decide to plan ahead. You don't just wake up one day and say "You know?? I wan to be a mom. A single mom! YEEEEEEEYYYY!!!!".

Yet, my daughter is the love of my life and the reason for my existence. I didn't always feel this way though. In fact in the beginning I thought this was the worse thing that could ever happen. I was terrified, but I wasn't a kid anymore. I was 33 and I felt and knew I had to take responsibility for my actions, even if the other person chose not to. I'm glad I made the right decision.
 
However, I wouldn't dare say that this is the right choice for everyone. Being a mom is really really tough, and being a single mom is even harder. Having a child is a decision you have to make yourself, it isn't something that you should be forced to do or not do. You should not make any decision based on what someone else thinks you should do or what someone else wants you to do. Period.

For me this has been an incredible journey so far. The things that were once important to me are not anymore. Now everything revolves around my baby, and rightfully so, because she is a baby. Doing my hair or putting on clothes that match take a back seat, among millions of other things.

My life has changed drastically, for the better (thank God). I've learned to see things differently and I've become more aware of others needs. I realize how extremely wrong and shallow I was in the past, and I've chosen that I don't ever want to be that way again.

With that said I want say to all: I'm sorry for having been such a self centered, judgmental, hypocrite, ignorant, and stupid person in my past life before my daughter.

Life is not about me. It never was. And life is not about you: It never will be. I got over myself, and you should get over yourself too.

From the instant I found out I was expecting I begun to change, literally. I started a clean up process, removing garbage and rearranging every aspect of my life, so that my daughter can have the best chance to live a great life. I truly loved this little being that I didn't know, and it was out of pure love that I did this. Because of love I was committed wholeheartedly to the task at hand.

While in this process (which is never ending) I realized one of the major changes that needed to happen was that I would have to have a higher esteem for myself. I had to love myself a whole lot more than I ever had, because if I wanted my daughter to love herself I needed to do it for myself. I didn't want to be a hypocrite anymore. I had to change.

This is when I decided to believe what my faith had told me for so long: That I am worth dying for.

This started a domino effect of all kinds of decisions and choices, some of which were not easy, but were indeed very beneficial. One of these decisions was to remove some people from the high positions in which I had mistakenly placed them. It suddenly dawned on me that if they wanted to be in those high positions: They were going to have to earn it.

In doing all this cleaning up and rearranging I came across perhaps the most amazing lesson I have learned:

That I am not incomplete.

I am whole. In other words there isn't another half of me nor anything else that can fill me or complete me floating around in the universe just waiting and aching to find me. I didn't need the right "man" to be happy. I didn't need the "perfect job", or the "perfect home", or the "right" or "perfect" anything. Everything I have ever wanted is already here. I am not lacking in anything.

I was, for the first time in my entire life, FREE. Truly, wonderfully, and finally free. Free at last.

Words can't describe how wonderful this is. Even in my trials, and I have many, I am happy and free. Nothing can change that. This freedom and this joy is not dependent on my circumstances or anyone else. When I have a bad day, and I have a lot of those, I'm still free and I am still joyful. Though this may not make sense, it's true.

Who would've thought that I would learn this through being a single mom? I most certainly would've never thought. Thank God I have though. And though I realize this isn't the story for many, I pray that it will be.

I thank God that I am a single mom every day. God bless the broken road that brought me to you my baby.