Adored.

Buy here. 

I'm reading this book and writing about how I want to feel.  And even as I'm waxing rhapsodic about wanting to feel "alive" and "connected" and "brave" and all that other stuff, I feel something in my throat.  Something I want to say and don't feel like I can, or should.

And I take a deep breath and start writing, and shit starts tumbling out of the end of my Pilot pen, and that thing in my throat grows larger and larger until I can hardly breathe, hardly swallow.

I want desperately, maybe more than anything else, to be adored.

I have no doubt that I've been loved in my life.  Deeply, and by many people.  But this isn't about that.

I want to be cherished.  I want to be wooed.  I want to be showered with affection, to be taken care of.  I want flowers and romance and love poems and other stuff that will make other people gag with its cheesiness.  (Side note here:  I don't want to be controlled or infantilized.  I've been there, and believe me, I'm not interested in going back.)

And the thing that kills me is: I've never thought it was okay to want that.

I've always been incredibly embarrassed by this.  In fact, I know for a fact that at the beginning of most of my romantic relationships, if not all of them, I've specifically said to the person, "I'm not a romantic person.  I don't want flowers--they're a waste of money.  Please don't buy me anything for Valentine's Day...." and it goes on and on.  I had to make it crystal clear that I didn't want any of those things because in my mind, romance is weakness.  It's not something a smart, independent woman wants.

I've pursued long-term relationships only with men who were already my friends, because it's easier to just be "friends with benefits" than to put yourself in a romantic situation.  Romance makes you vulnerable.  You can't hide behind your jokes and your sarcasm and your book smarts when you're letting someone love you in that way.

And so here I am, a divorced thirty-something single mom, alone on a Saturday night, waiting for -- what -- Lloyd Dobler to show up in the snow with his boom box?  And wondering why it won't happen?

An ex of mine once told me, "I don't think it's possible for a person to love you as much as you need to be loved."  That may very well be true.   But this hole inside me has been here for as long as I can remember, and it's worth seeing if I can close it.  I'm owning this now.

I want the motherfucking fairy tale.

And I won't settle.  Not this time.