Love Harder

LOVE

Four simple letters which, on their own, are hardly remarkable. But strung together…they have the ability to fuck you, and fuck you hard without buying you dinner first.

Why do we put our trust, our faith, in a stranger? Because of…love? Are we all just hopeless romantics at heart, chasing the proverbial happily ever after?

Once upon a time, I looked at love through rose-tinted glasses because love is meant to conquer all, right? Love was the reason Romeo drank the poison, why Bella sparkled, and why Jack froze to death as Rose sprawled out comfortably on a door big enough for ten and caught some zzz’s.

Being a romance writer, one may think I have my shit sorted when it comes to love.

I hate to spoil the ending for you, dear reader, but love and me, we aren’t friends. We haven’t been for quite some time. And that’s not because I don’t believe in love.

On the contrary.

I love love…but it seems love doesn’t love me. Or perhaps love is a sadistic bitch that enjoys giving me a taste of what I want, only to blow me a raspberry and sing na nah na na nah.

I am no one special.

I am someone who wakes every single morning and appreciates everything she has. These voices inside my head have been my saving grace in a way. I write to deal with my pain. I write to help myself heal. I write to survive because some days are a struggle.

Some good.

Some bad.

But all in all, I’m just like you.

I laugh.

I cry.

And I love.

There’s one thing my friends know to be true: when I love, I love hard. There’s no in-between. I don’t love easily because, like every single human being on this planet, I’ve been hurt. Been hurt to the point of losing parts of myself that I’ll never be able to get back.

I see these losses as character-building, a lesson learned, but that doesn’t mean it lessens the pain. Or that it doesn’t fucking suck.

My experiences with life and love are the reason I write, and I’m fortunate enough to have readers from all over the world connecting with my words. Whether it’s one book, one chapter, or one page, I never take for granted that something I created resonates with people.

It blows my mind.

And that’s what brings me to the now.

Buckle up, bestie. Things are about to get wild.

I wanted to write something different because, like all my story ideas, this idea wouldn’t let me sleep. It wouldn’t let me breathe without thinking about…him.

We all have a him.

A her.

A person in our lives who gives us hope that there is more to life than…this.

For me, that person caught me unawares because I wasn’t looking both ways when crossing the street, and that’s when life best throws you a curveball and screams KEEP UP! And most times, we can’t. We’re thrown into the deep end without a life vest and expected to swim through the currents that are sure to drown us.

Love and I were on a sabbatical, ETA unknown. And I was happy with that reality. If you’ve read HARD, you know that love and I were no longer on speaking terms.

I have always been a solitary being. It comes with the job, I guess. But even before writing, I always enjoyed the silence more than the noise. I took solace in simplicity because it’s where beauty truly shines.

I survived a failed marriage and a rekindled love that should have never been relit.

I don’t regret my time with these men, but would I have done things differently? The answer is hell to the fuck yes. But the thing about hindsight is that it’s fucking useless. I don’t look back and regret my choices because, at the time, those choices were the right ones to make.

Did I learn from them?

Probably not.

But the one thing I did learn is that I am a lot stronger than I ever gave myself credit for. I learned that I don’t need a man to complete me. I don’t need another person to validate my existence because, in the end, I’m the one who has to live with my choices.

That’s progress, right?

So I should have known better when he swept me off my feet…only to throw me off a cliff and watch me drown.

I fell for him, and boy, did I fall hard.

He was everything I wanted—looks, personality, heart; he was the perfect package. However, perfect doesn’t exist. I knew this. Yet I allowed him in when I should have slammed the door in his face.

Dating today is a fucking dumpster fire rolling down a hill while attempting to avoid a gauntlet of deathtraps along the way.

Swipe left.

Swipe right.

Love me.

Love me not.

I cannot keep up.

We live in a disposable world where one doesn’t even have to leave the house anymore to “meet” people. It’s all within a swipe to decide whether your “true love” is really out there.

I really miss the good old days when one’s ex stayed dead and buried and you never had to see or hear from them again. Now, it seems social media likes to recommend “friends” one may want to connect with.

Heads-up, they’re not on my friends list for a reason.

I don’t care what they’re doing. Who they’re fucking, and if she loved the Boston Pancake he gave her for their one-month anniversary (you’re welcome, Blush Podcast Besties). And I don’t care what they ate for dinner (here’s hoping it’s not an Alabama Tuna Melt. Again, Blush Besties, we will discuss further).

I choose not to see because ignorance is truly bliss.

You know what my triggers are…life. Life triggers me daily.

I’m all about my nurturing inner peace these days, and anything that disturbs that peace can fuck right off and take itself out with the trash I left outside. But social media seems to enjoy rubbing salt in the wounds of the brokenhearted any chance it gets, which is why I decided to write a book about dating in the modern world.

Whoever thought this was a good idea was clearly on crack, but alas, here we are.

The idea was called 40 Dates, 40 Nights, and I proposed to do just that. Who am I to back down from a challenge, no matter how insane it may be? I thought it was a clever play on the biblical coined phrase because this was, without a doubt, going to be a nightmare of biblical proportions.

I wanted to write a book about online dating versus IRL dating. I hate that that acronym exists, but it seems we’re even too lazy to speak words nowadays and would rather use abbreviations because it’s all about the hustle, baby.

I learned so much while researching. Some things I wish I could burn from my mind with a blowtorch. Others were rather educational.

I have always been fascinated by humans.

Every single one of us is different in our own way, and those ways are paths I enjoy traveling along, especially when I find a human who challenges me in ways I haven’t been before. Honestly, the weirder, the better.

I don’t use that term in a derogatory light because I am a proud weirdo. I have always gravitated toward the macabre. The strange. There is so much more to life…we just have to know where to look. Or get lost while searching.

I have surrounded myself with a group of misfits who are the most beautiful weirdos I love with my entire heart. They give me hope that good people do exist. Without my weirdos, I wouldn’t be here. That’s no word of a lie.

So embrace your tribe because they are the ones who will be your light when the darkness threatens to siphon out your flame. My girls and I have laughed; we’ve cried over the men in our lives. We’ve given nicknames to the men who love bombed us for weeks and promised they were different, only to be lying a-holes, faster than they can “root and boot” because if you can’t laugh, you’ll cry, right?

(I love you, Bunny, Angel, M?tley, and Sparkles).

Our conversation would go along the lines of, “How’s Maraca?”

“Maraca? You mean Chicken Skin?”

“Chicken Skin? Was he the one with the balloon dick?”

“Balloon dick? You mean, the one who howled like a hyena when he came?”

“Hmm…that’s Tiny Nipples.”

“Oh shit, that’s right. Maybe he and Leprechaun can dance under the rainbow together in their velour tracksuits.”

For the record, we do not condone the ridiculing of any decent human being, but these men were not decent, and they totally deserved it.

I’ve never settled in life. I’ve always looked for the exceptional because that’s what I want. That’s what I deserve. As clichéd as it is, life is too short to settle for anything less. Even in past relationships, they were exceptional enough for me to commit at the time.

Although they didn’t work, it doesn’t lessen their impact on my life. I connected with them and learned a lot. To connect with a human being is a remarkable thing. It’s rare, but it changes your world forevermore when it happens.

So I went into writing a book about modern-day dating with the same mindset. I wanted to connect with someone who inspired me enough to want to write about them.

Best idea…said no one ever.

It seems not only am I stubborn and fussy, but I’m also old-school because the moment a guy asked if I wanted to see his dick, I succumbed to the pressure of society and hit that unmatch button faster than I could scream what in the ever-living donkey dick fuck?

Why do people think it’s common practice to send an unsolicited dick pic? Or even a tit pic?

This behavior is frowned upon in public, so why is it an acceptable online practice? It seems hiding behind a screen name has given many a false bravado where they think it’s okay to behave in such a manner online. Whereas, in real life, one could be arrested for freeing Willy.

The line blurs with online dating because one has no repercussions for their actions. They think behaving a certain way is okay because no one can see them. No one knows who they truly are. They can remain incognito, forever hiding beneath the Harry Potter invisibility cloak while sending random people pictures of their pink bits.

What’s the worst that can happen?

Well, the worst that can happen is this memoir because your beloved narrator fell for someone. Actually, she fell for more than one someone. And damn, did she fall hard. She fell so hard for one man in particular, she thought he could possibly be “the one.”

He promised me he was different, only to be worse than anyone ever before him. I told him what broke me, only for him to break me even more.

But you see, our man of the hour, he thought he could ghost me… Well, he thought wrong.