It’s strange to feel like I’m ready for a rela­tion­ship at only this point in my life. It didn’t seem right that any­one should love me if I didn’t love myself, and that didn’t really start until recently.

It also took a good round of ther­apy to fig­ure out that I was sab­o­tag­ing my rela­tion­ships so no one could have the chance to hurt me. If I con­sider which ones would have worked out had that not been an issue that caused me to break up with my girl­friends in order to pro­tect myself, I can only think of one. But that was a long time ago, and while we may have worked then, it’s no guar­an­tee for the peo­ple we’ve become, as I’m sure there’s been a lot of growth on both our ends. It’s only now that I feel like my per­sonal evo­lu­tion has reached a peak, a place where I’m sat­is­fied with who I am, and there won’t likely be any more dras­tic changes that may affect the dynam­ics of a relationship.

I’ve been able to rec­og­nize that the risk of get­ting hurt is insep­a­ra­ble from the trust we place in the peo­ple we love, and that risk is always worth it. I’ve left behind my bag­gage, some­thing no one else should have to deal with, and I’ve had enough expe­ri­ence to know exactly what I’m look­ing for in a rela­tion­ship and what kind of peo­ple work with me.

Took me 30 years to fig­ure it all out, but everybody’s gotta learn sometime.