The Love Experiement

PREFACE

In the beginning...

Ten years ago I began writing this series.  However, not intentionally.  I had loads of journals that I'd written in.  I had once dreamed of reading my piles of journals to the masses but had no idea how to go about it so a book seemed to be the route to take. I gave the book the name, "The Playground".

It was focused on relationships using the playground - the swings, the monkey bars, the sand castle; as an analogy of how relationships work.  The one caveat, I knew nothing of how relationships worked.  In previous years, I'd hurt and lost the trust of the one best friend I can honestly say I've ever known...then it was the boyfriend that I'd had for over 10 years but would not marry...then it was the slew of new relationships that were just as tempestuous.  Although I had journals and tons of creativity to show to the world, I was having a difficult time putting the desires of my heart into this frame I'd envisioned.

After two years of fumbling with words and losing more relationships - I gave up the notion of completing "The Playground".  My last entry to it was titled CHOSEN: Why it's important to be picked last.

At the time I was heart broken. Single, alone, oh and by the way with three kids of my own to raise.  I finally came to the heart wrenching realization that I'd not had one successful relationship to hang this book upon. 

I continued to write though, hoping that I would change and faith that I could.  Hoping that with focusing on changing me, I would naturally attract those that my heart and soul seemed to seek.

Fast forward, I thought I was headed into the right direction.  I took up fulfilling my desire to write a book.  This time changing the title to Lyfe, Love, & Poetry | Metamorphosis.  Yet life told me differently...It took many to tell me that I was headed backwards.  I was doing the same old thing.  I needed to give my all and that somewhere along my way I'd stopped my growth and stopped changing.  At the end of a year where I expected great change, growth, and expectation... I again lost valuable relationships and opportunities.

Again, the purpose of my book was lost.  I honestly was afraid to write.  I took time to just be silent.  To just let things happen.  To take time to kill the desire and need of companionship. 

Now...
I am battered by life but I am still trying to figure out my whys and fighting to have my victories.  We all are, in a sense.  I've had several opportunities to have thriving relationships that call for me to grow and change.  Though my spirit craves this like my body grasp for its next breathe, I have  found myself constantly suffocating my relationships and opportunities in an effort to protect myself from heart break.  Inevitably creating it.  With time to introspect myself; I often stop listening, I become destructive, I isolate myself, and instead of giving out my gifts freely, I trickle them out like a leaky faucet into a thirsty world.

I am afraid like so many of us are.  Afraid of the unknown but the familiar is creating a slow death that I awaken to every day.  It's the still, small voice that continues to reach out to me to live.  I ask it why every morning...

In attempt to try the unfamiliar and break free of my cage; written between these lines are me... my failures, my pains, my broken promises, my fears, but also my hopes, my dreams, my desires - to love, to live, to be free, to grow, to change, and to become.  Some from today, others from yesterday, and some from years passed. 

I don't have the answers to lyfe.  I've not figured out love or have yet to become my best self to give to someone else.  I only have the desire to know, to grow, and to live - abundantly with a full heart.

These are my experiments to tweak my natural inhibition to hide, to put off, to not give my all, and ultimately AGAIN creating my own heartbreak.  I pray I am able to break free.

Enjoy