Everybody has luggage...but what is luggage?

Yikes.  I'm back and totally cheating on my novel.  Father forgive me for I have sinned but I want to share something with y'all, that I just recently worked out in my head during a late night conversation with someone.  I'm practicing celibacy (practicing meaning Jesus don't fail me now) of the mind, body and spirit meaning I'm completely empty of anyone else.  I can't even entertain my past anymore which obviously sucks sometimes because I innocently miss them from time to time.  But it's like trying to stay on a diet and baking brownies every night.  It's not going to work.  The temptation is too real.  You remember everything, you smell the goodness and you dive into the batter of a man you cannot digest.  And then when you eat the whole pan because we all know you'll eat the whole pan, there's no stopping, you sit on your bed stuffed, sick with the overload of calories you're no longer used to.  Eventually, you're so uncomfortable that you have to purge yourself and you find yourself hovering over a porcelain god praying for repentance, promising that if the pain ceased enough, you will never do it again.

Girl.  I know.  I ain't write a book about it yet, but I am because that's how real it gets.  Anyway, I decided that I had to come clean with myself.  The proposals, the apologies, the making of amends, those were all beautiful things and I thank the men that changed me, that carved me into a thicker woman, a stronger woman, a wounded woman.  I love them all, still very much but more than any love I show gratitude.  A true sign of my gratitude is to actually put into practice the lessons they taught me.  They taught me to move on by MOVING THE F.CK ON.  So, I'm moving the absolute f.ck on.  Now, it's scary.  Don't get me wrong.  I want to crawl back into familiar arms so many times.  Sometimes it's a song or a certain food that reminds me of times I'm not too sure I don't want to go back to BUT there's a reason it didn't work and my job is not to figure that out but to appreciate it.  So back to my celibacy.  There's a difference between luggage and bullsh.t  I stopped entertaining empty relationships to give a real one a chance.  My daughter is luggage, my skepticism is luggage.  But carrying a few grown ass men around, that's BULLSH.T.  It is unfair and selfish of me to expect a man to hold me down while I'm clearly busy holding other men down.  I'm over being selfish. I'm over being a party of four and still going to bed alone.  NO.  I'm one woman, one heart, one body and one soul and that's all I should be carrying.  

At this point in my life, if a man approaches me and I think there's something there, I'm not making him compete.  My dedication, monogamy and exclusivity from day one is the truest example of how serious I am and how I deserve the same in return.  There's no competition here.  I'm yours from day one.  Maybe it will work, maybe it won't but at least from the second he enters my life, he knows that I'm trying with all I have.  And I think when a man feels like he's number one, he does a better job of acting like it.  When you present yourself as a queen, you lay out the platform for him to be a KING and what man doesn't want to run the castle?  In addition to that, when talking to several people at a time, it can get so messy, so fast, most times unintentionally.  Sometimes I interact with people thinking it's nothing, just a few text messages, just a few outings - they can't possibly like me from that, they don't know me.  But some people don't need much.  Some people WILL like you, some people will even LOVE you and you're arrogant to think your casual interaction is casual to them too.  Everyone is different.  Every god requires different things.  Every sinner has a different confession.  Don't play with people and then wonder why you've been toyed with.  Free yourself by freeing others.  Love on purpose.  Love with purpose.  Grow up and make a decision.  Decide from the moment that your king appears to you that you're ready or NOT ready to build an empire and whatever your decision is, make it clear to yourself and to him.  Don't let a man build a home inside of you and you have no intention of staying there.  Don't let a man fall in love with you because you're lonely and not worthy.  

And I promise you, it starts to feel good.  It feels really good when you know you're behaving in a way to reap what you truly deserve.  Yep, I deserve to live good because I budgeted my emotions, my sex and all of my goodness until I had enough saved up to enjoy another worthy human being.

Ladies, I love y'all.  Men, I love y'all too.  But let's face it, when you finally become a trustworthy person, you become more open to trusting others.  It is when we do our own dirt that we become skeptics of everyone around us.  I used to be terrified of my karma and I should have been, but now... day by day, I invite her into me.  Because my goodness will return itself tenfold in the form of a king ready for the type of queen I have finally become.

Love.