Save your love for someone who deserves it and can reciprocate it.

I seem to always come across this sentence as of late. Each time, I am overcome with emotion and a sense of newfound understanding. It's mainly because I never really understood what it meant to save my love. Save my love for what exactly? That was always a question I never really had the answer to. Giving it away seemed easy, but letting someone keep it, well that never really lasted long. There is a difference between loving someone and loving the mere idea of them. That is something I learned early one, often times in complete denial of being in love conditionally. Reciprocating what I thought was love would last a few days, then the clouds of uncertainty and knowingly being unfulfilled outweighed the bliss. I finally understood that a person you could be totally into one minute and turn around and feel detached from the next was very real, because that person was me. I am more than unable to go back and forth. I am extremely good at separating wants and needs, still shedding tears and self-guilt that seems to always come around when I am no longer connected to a man at the hip. Still capable of letting those feelings of sadness and self-guilt pass as quickly as they came.

For as long as I can remember, I have always been infamous for compartmentalizing. Inside is where I kept those worried thoughts, personal trials with hopes of bringing myself back to life. I learned in the midst of me being single that a man would never be able to bring me back to life the way that God can and has. He is able to listen, provide solutions and a peace of mind that far outweighs what any man can and will provide for me. Connection after connection that has been severed were easy to swallow and get over because of Him. Maybe because deep down I was always aware that I would be encountering something even better down the road, knowing that I am more than capable of doing better. Maybe it's because deep down I knew I didn’t need to speak louder to be heard and taken seriously. Maybe it's because I am actually pretty cool and I deserve to be respected. Maybe it's because I could never be anyone’s "in the meantime.” Or maybe it's because I had way more to offer than just a physical connection. I could go on, but I think you get the point.

Something I have taken away from these thoughts is that when growth hits and time passes, the definition of the word love and what that looks like will be fine-tuned by the One who created it to begin with. It will cause you to question the depth of that four letter word when it is blurted out. Growth will provide the platform to eliminate denial and excuses for someone who is too close. Life will change your perspective every day. Jesus will change your perspective every day. It also doesn’t hurt to talk to God about what you want, including a significant other. My perspective, because of Him, is ever-changing and I’ve never been more open to adjusting accordingly then I am at this point in my life. He will determine who ultimately deserves your love and provide the tools and lessons to reciprocate that love.