“Make a written list of everything you love.” Rhonda Byrne

Covid-19 at home orders have pushed me towards purging, clearing, ditching, donating. I have come across a couple of old notebooks with my then love lists written in bold hope.

I write my feelings, I always have. I knew what I wanted and wrote it down. What I want in a partner: Smart, funny, successful, playful, kind. Throughout the years my love list/requirements changed. I mean what I wanted in one book varied greatly from year to year. Tall, he must be tall! The next list did not include a height plea.Did my list change because I changed? Was it my journey through love that I honed what mattered? My love experience drove ink to paper.

“I will never compromise like that again” crying to myself, curled up in a ball anguishing over the wrong love once again. Being scorned I wanted to avoid fire?

I thought by writing down what I wanted in love I could find that love. Like a map or a key, I would know. Ah ha! There he is. Manifesting the right man. The stroke of a pen becomes my magic wand.

The truth was, by writing I was working through my own thoughts and issues. I was getting to know myself better. Seeking clarity of my heart. Perhaps going through painful love paved the way towards healthier love? Trying not to love judge myself.

Earnestly seeking to discover why men were, well how they are, for decades. A study of the male species turned out much differently then I imagined.

What I learned; it was never about any of the men. It was about myself. Where I was at, and who I was attracted to at the time. Finding lessons in boundaries, slowly leaning my own truth. If I allowed myself into a compromising relationship it was because I did not feel worthy of a strong partnership.

People come as they are. I cannot change them, only myself. It was a journey of love. It was a journey of finding esteem, worthiness for a healthy love.

 What I know for sure? I never found what I was looking for in the sheets. I found all sorts of other things, but never true love.

Reflecting on my old love lists with insight and compassion. I evolved into some of those things on my list. If they were qualities I wanted in a partner I needed to find them in myself.

Did I end up with a love that resembled my lists? Sort of. I ended up with a partner that matches up with my now self. A person that I want to be with, laugh with, and trust. Love, life, lists, can be simple if met with self-compassion, brutal honesty, and room for growth.

My Mantra: “Working on myself I attracted better partners”

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Katie L Lindley

Although I would like to say I am organized, focused and cookie-cutter, that simply would not be me. I am no different than any other woman in the world. I love to love, love hard, and, in the end, have learned to love myself above all else. So here I am, writing about the many men and the multiple purposes they have served in my life. Realizing that not one man on my roster had fulfilled every single one of my needs. Perhaps one man is not supposed to? I have compiled snippets of the men that have entered my world. In the end, they have shoved me towards my bathroom mirror, forcing me to take a better look at myself. Reflection is brilliant and the strongest guidepost into ourselves.

Working on the next book in the series “A House for Every Purpose, My Journey From Pillow to Pillow” revels a woman abandoning her home in search or her identity beyond men, motherhood, author.

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