I suppose that sounds sexually suggestive but…I’m not talking about that.

My friends are my soul mates.

I believe soul mates are mirrors for us. They show us sides of ourselves that we can’t see because we’re too close to ourselves.

My dear friend wants to have a good time and be casual. While dating. Whatever that means for her.

But, like me, she’s really cerebral. Bless her heart, her standards are astronomically high and they should be.

She’s a catch. Brilliant, beautiful, funny with good teeth. I mean — what’s not to like? She’s also a fellow serial monogamist.

So, she wants to have fun while dating, but part of her is like, Fun? Ain’t nobody got time for that.

And another part of her is like, “Excuse me, fun partner, do you have good credit and dynamic interests?”

But, you know, we can’t tighten our grasp and let go of stuff at the same time for a reason.

You can’t date with a purpose and then be like, “Nah, I didn’t ask you to marry me and spend the rest of your life with me! I said would you carry me and spend the rest of the night with me.”

“Your fun button is broken,” I said without hesitating.

So I told my homegirl that and she repeated it back to me. “Yeah. Maybe my fun button is broken.”

Mine is broken, too, but I’m working on fixing it. Because summer is coming. And I have to do something besides write all the time.

I’m ready to be with my feelings. Feelings is probably my least favorite f-word, by the way. Work is way less complicated. Logical! Organized! A place for everything! A strategic plan!

Emotions = fuzzy, messy, unpredictable. Ugh. It’s too HOT.

Still, I don’t want to go back to being a workaholic. Most of my co-workers are married, if not to each other, to partners they met long ago (typically not at work). So, I’ve planned my first vacation for this summer that will not involve writing, just hanging out. I’m looking for beach reads. I’m going to a lot more parties. My friends are certain that courtship is in my future, though I’m not so sure. But a lot of the parties I’ve been to have been couple-heavy, so it’s hard to know for sure.

What are your summer plans? Are y’all out there dating and mixing it up for some summer love, or what?

First it was shooting guns. Now, it’s boxing.

I was a marathoner for a little while, but the time, energy and costs wore me down after a bit.

So during life transition 2013, I decided to give myself the gift of boxing classes.

I’ve always been a passive boxing fan, rooting for Manny Pacquiao, before him, Mike Tyson (his love for pigeons and all) and before him, the greatest of all time, Muhammad Ali.

The only thing that gives me pause is getting hit in the face. Or knocked down. Or both.

I’ve got enough natural body padding (ahem) that I hope my ribs aren’t vulnerable to any mild sparring. But first things first. I’ve only had five classes. I was thinking about this Brene Brown book, and a great Theodore Roosevelt quote that opens the book:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

I’m in the arena. All the time. So are you.

She says later in the book that she doesn’t take feedback/criticism from anyone who isn’t in the proverbial arena, fighting. LOVE.

And that message for me came right on time. I think it’s applicable for most messages we get from popular culture about single women, except that I don’t take advice about dating from other single people. Because they’re in the same boat, uh, arena as me, and if they had answers, they’d have made more progress, right?

What’s more important is that I don’t take feedback/criticism from people who aren’t striving to be better and aren’t interested in my efforts to make myself better because it highlights their insecurities. All of my closest, dearest friends are women in the arena in one way or another, and I’m grateful to count some men in that category as well.

So…

1. You might get beat up while you learn: I have accepted that I have limited hand-eye coordination and that I’m probably going to harm myself while I learn. I’m always sore. I like it because it means that I’m trying, stretching, doing something different, using different muscles. This is what dating and flirting is like when you’re single. Every time you put yourself out there and the date is a bust or all he wants to do is text or he’s just not that into you or you’re just not into him, it’s like getting smacked on the shoulder when you’re slapboxing, figuring out how to block yourself from stupid. There’s also the emotional workout. I said to my instructor that I wasn’t that coordinated and she paused. After I threw a few punches she said, “You’re coordinated, you just think too much.” Sounds like my love life!
2. It looks easier and more like fun on television: It’s hard not to consider TV the devil, which is easy for me to say because I only have a couple of must-watch shows these days so that I can actually get some writing and reading in. But while I’m considering getting back into courting/dating/whatever it’s called these days, I know that those great dates that include flowers and nice, non-awkward outings really only happen on old TV shows that aren’t even on-air anymore (looking at you Sex and The City and Living Single). So it is with boxing. That fancy footwork looks easy until you try to do it. Same with the jab, cross, hook. It’s all fun and games until you try to wrap your hands and end up looking like a cat raided a bolt of yarn in a frenzy.
3. It’s great practice for learning how to fight for yourself in the rest of your life: I really hope I don’t have to ever punch someone in the face to defend myself, but it’s nice to know how. I’d like it if I didn’t spend the rest of my days relying on non-human sentient beings for companionship, but I can’t call it.
4. No one is born knowing how and you can’t teach yourself: Single is nice, but it doesn’t come with instructions in a world where most people anticipate that you’ll be part of a pair. So, it takes practice learning to be one in a world of twos. The same is true with boxing. You can guess and glean some things on YouTube, but you never really know how to do it right without guidance.
5. It makes you think about your fitness (physically/spiritually): It’s been long enough since my last relationship that I have a very clear idea of what my weaknesses are and what my strengths are when it comes to love and dating. The same way I know that I prefer writing in the morning and working out in the evening to the reverse, so I love that most of the boxing classes I’ve been taking aren’t at o’dark thirty.
6. The whole world is an arena: Not just a stage. But every day and every moment is the arena, and you get to choose how you step into it. You get a whole different kind of confidence when you own yourself and your life and everything in it. Self-possession is a beautiful thing. I can feel the confidence making my spine straighter when I walk. I don’t have the same slump, not even when I’m sitting down, because of the stress I let out when I’m hitting the bag and the slow strength that comes with working really hard.

Out come the flirty dresses and the pretty skirts. Because I’m out more, I tend to get more attention, not all of it welcome. For instance, I was propositioned by the lawn guy, who is an otherwise very nice SO MARRIED AND NOT REALLY MY TYPE! guy.

Even if he were single, my heart isn’t really in it.

I told one of my friends I think my fun button is broken.

My favorite of the marriage equality signs. Love is love.

Some of it is being busy. More of it has to do with the energy it takes to grow and change, to move in a new direction. I don’t ever admit this in public, but…I’m tired. Like, all the time.

It’s a great direction, one that I’ve worked hard for. But it’s still new. And I liked the old me, my old habits.

They were comfy security blankets.

There’s something really great about bad habits, even when you know they’re bad. I kind of enjoyed being blissfully ignorant, except that there’s nothing really great about ignorance when you know that’s what it is. Life does seem simpler when you don’t know what you don’t know.

On the matter of desire, especially.

When I simply wanted someone to show up for me the way I wanted them to, I could generally mask self-sabotage by telling myself that guys just “weren’t ready for this jelly” or some other Beyoncé lyric. The truth was harder for me to accept, that I was trying to be a hunter-gathering goddess on the love front –  “I’m goin’ huntin’!” — applying my work ethic to matters of the heart. I know, I know: men say they like it when women chase them. But I think there’s a coy way that men like this to happen that might be a gender rule I’m making up, but I almost never operated that way.

Maybe I just needed face paint and that would’ve helped more? (From Petersenshunting.com)

I think this is why it’s easier for folks to play games.If you’re just playing around, if it doesn’t work out, you can just pretend to shrug it off and save face. Because you weren’t serious, allegedly.

There are still things that I’m passionate about, but dating is not one of them, for this very reason.

Except, the weird thing about desire is that sometimes when you stop chasing the thing you want the most in the world, it starts chasing you.

This has come up a couple of times, but most recently I noticed it when I went into a store where I crushed very hard years ago on a local dude I’ll call Steve.

Steve was kind of a jerk, because I used to really like jerks (it was a way of being mean to myself, enduring the company of guys who made Kanye West seem congenial.)

And he liked me. I think.

At the very least, he gave me free food, and his sister thought we should get together and he even sometimes took long walks with me to get coffee when I was in the neighborhood. So, I gave him my number.

He never called. I let it go.

Years have passed since I’ve been a frequent customer. Because, you know. Pride.

Only funny because it’s true! In my case, more like ambivalence.

Well, I dropped by the other day, just because I was hungry and it was on my way home and he was there. I thought he was going to jump out of his skin. He was super…melodramatic. “Where have you been?!”

“Writing. Around. Living,” I said. I wasn’t trying to be dispassionate. I was just confused by this enthusiasm.

“It’s so good to see you. Don’t be a stranger.”

Huh. The difference four years makes? Maybe. Also, everybody says that to everybody. Don’t be a stranger. It doesn’t mean “I’ll call you soon for a date.”

I suck my teeth when people talk about how women shouldn’t be afraid to approach men, because sometimes men are terrified of us. If I had a dollar for every time I asked the wrong a guy out, I’d be rich. I know that guys hear all this stuff about independent women, and how they think those of us who are feminists don’t “need” them — but none of that matters. Who cares about necessity when what you really want is for someone to want you the way you want them?

I’ve been reading Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, in which she writes about vulnerability. I love me some Brené Brown in general, but also because reading her work has led me to a really important conclusion about my own vulnerability. I realized reading this book that sharing my love and heart with people irrespective of their capacity for intimacy has been a habit for a long time. All the scars that come with dating the wrong people come from this assumption that there is something more that I could do or become or achieve that would make the difference when really, at the end of the day, we just weren’t compatible.

I used to be bound to a twisted, limited notion of love and desire, one that considered love/affection a response to a deep need for validation, a thirst for healing and rescue, an unnecessary burden I never had to carry but decided to anyway. I’m not sorry that I have compromised my heart and my dignity through despair and on my way to healing, but I wish I’d figured this out a little sooner.

It would mean that I’d get to see jerks like the shopkeeper without averting my eyes in shame or irritation that he couldn’t see what I gift I was then, though he sees it now. What spring offers me this year, like every year, is a gift. Yes, the pretty skirts and the nice dresses, but also the promise of a fresh start. A new way of thinking about what desire really means, what it feels like with a heart that’s more open and not so bogged down with immature notions.

After a crazy March, I glanced up from my car to see that Mother’s Day was coming.

I wrote last year about my first season without parents and what it felt like to be without my Mom and my Dad for the first time. My loved ones told me that anniversaries would be hard and oddly enough, that helped. The twinge I get now isn’t really about what I’m missing — it was before, when they were alive. Now I feel something more like…love. Respect. Honor.

I stay out of discussions about single mothers and parents. I actively chose not to be a single teenage parent, which I write about in Get Out of My Crotch. This is not because I felt ashamed, per se, of growing up the way I did and mistaking sex for love or a way to feel worthy, but because I watched how hard my mother’s life was as a single parent, and I knew that I wasn’t up for the task.

There was also the fear, of course, of being a statistic. This is both the artist in me, the creative, who wants to be fully seen and acknowledged as unique and the black woman intellectual in me, who understands that what and who I am on the outside is always judged first as the total of what I am on the inside — even if it is incomplete or flat-out wrong.

But underneath the fear of being a statistic, which I am as a single, professional woman anyway, is the desire to belong to a community. To be single, parent or no, is often to be cast aside and cast away, the stubborn avatar of independence, failure to launch by failure to merge, somehow. And for women, this failure is always depicted as our own problem, our defect.

My Mom, some time in the 1970s. Working it.

If you’re a single mother, especially if you’re not white, this shaming can be relentless and unceasing. Even though it makes perfect economic sense that fewer women are getting married because there are diminishing returns for many of us on that front.

My friend, the lovely writer and Beyond Baby Mamas founder Stacia L. Brown, wrote recently at The Atlantic about how unwed mothers feel about being unwed, noting that when statistics come out about single mothers, people tend to talk around them instead of to them about their feelings.

As the child of a single mother, I remember this acutely. No one ever asked my mother about her feelings. If they had, they’d have found nuances that didn’t match their disrespectful portraits: she had internalized enough heart breaks that she hid her deepest self, even from me. She was a registered Republican in New York State (!) during the Reagan era, even while we were in the cross hairs of Reagan’s draconian policies related to the poor.

What I wish I had known then, when I was internalizing messages that I was a part of a larger social problem because I had a single mother who worked and went to school all the time, trying to be better, was that pretty much everyone grows up in one form of dysfunction or another. Steven Spielberg spoke powerfully about this on 60 Minutes, memoirist Mary Karr writes extensively about this in The Liar’s Club, which I just finished, and the list goes on. Pathology is not just a single black woman’s thing.

Except, when people start talking about women who are mothers who aren’t married, they are inferring that these are unfit women. They don’t respect them. They suggest that it is somehow, defying reason, the easiest thing in the world to raise a child alone, when in fact, it appears to be the hardest job on the planet.

Consternation over our parenting of our children, it has to be said, is a coded way (in the same way that arguments about single black women is) of saying that without “proper course-correcting” we don’t have the instincts God gave us to be good women, caregivers or anything else without the help of the state, the government, smart people and, basically, men. Jim Rigby, an eloquent pastor,  writing about the death of Chinua Achebe, notes that we are all victims of the narrative of the American Empire:

It is not our fault that we were born in a vast and brutal military empire, but it is our responsibility to do what we can to lessen the violence of empire against our sisters and brothers of the earth. It begins when we can recognize their humanity. We may not have the answer on how to undo the violence of empire but, at the very least, we can get our minds and hearts free.

We are all always just doing the best that we can. My deep affection and longing for my mother, in spite of our history together, is entrenched in honor. I honor her for what she had to give, even when it wasn’t exactly all that I needed, or even close.

It’s very rare that someone is just mailing it in when it comes to their children, in particular, I’ve noticed. Even my own mother, who was divorced by the time she had me, had a lot of flaws, but all things considered, I turned out pretty great, albeit with a few bruises and existential identity issues.

How is it possible that the world keeps spinning and children somehow magically grow up to unwed mothers without being maladjusted soul-sucking malcontents?

Well, single parents are incredibly resourceful human beings — the children they love and adore require that. What my mother, the most resourceful person I ever met in the pre-Internet era and since, didn’t know how to give me she found someone who could. The village raised me, even in places completely unfriendly, if not downright hostile, to kids, like New York City. This was a coalition of friends, relatives and mentors. A multiracial cast of people who provided much more to me than my biological father would ever be able to offer me.

Beyond that, what I find fascinating about discussions about single mothers, particularly those who aren’t necessarily highly educated or high earners, is that few writers and reporters interrogate their own assumptions about “the right way” to raise children, whether they have them or not. In Daring Greatly, another book I just finished, by Brene Brown, she writes that one of the most harmful things parents can do is judge other parents for how they raise their children.

It seems to me that the last thing single mothers and single fathers (the latter of which are almost entirely invisible in any debate — do they not exist?) need is hand wringing over the economic ramifications of their personal choices or the insinuation, essentially, that the rest of us have to pay for what we also insinuate are their careless mistakes. I was made intentionally, loved with a greater intensity than most kids can ever hope for and while I could have had more stability, and life would have been different with a father in the home, there’s no telling if it would have been better. Conjecture that promises a narrative that isn’t true isn’t an answer, and it doesn’t change the course of personal lives.

“Single women – with and without kids – have special challenges in their work lives that most married women do not. They have no spousal salary as a back-up plan. In some ways, they need greater opportunities and protections, but they get fewer. If, for example, a married woman becomes ill and her spouse has a job covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act, that spouse can take time off under the Act to care for her. No peer in the life of a single woman (such as a close friend or a sibling) can take time to care for her.” — Dr. Bella DePaulo, Is the Lean-In Conversation Going to Leave Out Single Women? at her Single at Heart blog

“I tell all my single guy friends to watch out for online dating. It is a sad, soul-crushing place where good guys go to die a slow death by way of ignored messages and empty inboxes. You will peruse profiles and find a few women who aren’t posing in a bathroom with their stomachs exposed. You will look for things in common in their profile (they like Scrabble too!). You will send them a note, carefully crafted to show interest and attention to detail. The first seven will not respond. The next one will, but she spells “you” as “u” and you will let the conversation stall.” — Why Online Dating Sucks for Men at AlterNet (reposted from Role Reboot)

I followed my boss to a nearby elementary school in my neighborhood, where I was surrounded by children.

We’ve talked about children before, yeah?

I love them. They’re fun, especially when you can give them back to their parents.

I think that they’re way better to be around than adults because they’re honest and pretty much always in the moment.

You see how they feel about everything on their little chubby faces that are sticky with apple juice.

They ask for what they want without shame, warning or, sometimes, reason.

They are the reason I love that quote, “The creative adult is the child who survived.”

But they also have so much energy. So, so much.

The year I turned 30, when I went to Disney World and felt like I was being punished for being a single woman because there were kids having meltdowns everywhere, I totally thought – “Thank you, Jesus, for knowing that I am not prepared to be a parent.”

Pets. Pets are where it’s at. They might pee on your stuff when they’re mad, but they can’t scream like you’re killing them when all you said was, “No, you can’t have that mouse-shaped cookie.”

Before I walked in there, I was also caught up in this idea about my Real Writer self. She is the adult, savvy one who never makes mistakes and has perfect boundaries and also rarely has an iota of fun. Because she’s busy. There is the future to think about.

Also, the Real Writer is kinda stuffy. She keeps a lot of love to herself. She’s not really into this whole love the world, kumbaya thing I’m starting to warm up to.

So, I walked in, trying to be the Real Writer.

Oh, but there were hats. And cookies.

After we got our borrowed red and white Cat in the Hat hats (yes!! I wore one, even though it didn’t quite fit) several adults were assigned to read to a few classes for Dr. Seuss Day. And then we were split up into three groups to read.  A librarian (swoon) said that we were about to have the most non-judgmental audience ever.

But I was still a little nervous. Because kids are so little and gentle. I worry that I will say something stupid and they’ll be scarred forever.

I know, logically, that they’re resilient like I have been. They are strong. They can take it. But I basically tend to stay away from them because I respect them, and I feel like they deserve the best, and to be around people who are absolutely, totally excited to be in their midst.

I’m usually more reserved than that. But I was happy to be different for them, for a change. I got so much back just by being open.

“Oh, the Thinks You’ll Think” was my book.

I got three or four pages in before a sweet little brown-haired girl interrupted me to say, “Excuse me, I like your hair.”

“Oh, thank you.” I smiled at her. I paused. I tried to keep reading.

“I can play the violin” a little black girl said.

“I play the viola,” a blonde girl said.

“Can I try on your hat?” a fidgety brown boy said.

So I relinquished it. They were passing around the while I finished the story.

“Read another one!” they said. Their teacher smiled wisely at me, handed me “Green Eggs and Ham” and so I did.

“I don’t think I’ve read this one,” I muttered.

“He likes green eggs and ham!”

“I think they’re delicious.”

“I like this book!”

Before I knew it, it was over, and I was more sad than I thought I’d be to be leaving them.

The little brown-haired girl stopped me on my way out of the door and said, “Excuse me,” and then gave my hips a hug with her whole body and walked away.

It was the best hug I’d had in a long time. It made my whole month. It also made me think,  “Maybe those kids know a lot more than I thought.”

I got a new job that starts at the beginning of March at my alma mater, the University of Texas (Hook ‘em, horns!) I start the week before South by Southwest Interactive begins. I’m presenting a panel this year for the first time with my friend and mentor Dori Maynard on March 10.

I also just signed a book contract to write about racism in traditional media.

When it rains it pours, huh?!

I’m so incredibly excited that I can barely sleep. Or maybe I can’t hardly sleep because I’ve been busy celebrating. One of those, or both.

But I’ve been wondering about the next step for Single & Happy, since it’s been my blog baby for the past year.

I’m not a big fan of goodbyes and I love my WordPress community, so I’m not inclined to delete the blog. I also think poorly done blogging is worse than silence.

So, during my transition to having a day job again and  beginning work on a new writing project, I’ll be here a lot less.

I’ll do my best to come back once in a while with something great.

In the meantime, in the words of Simple Minds, don’t you forget about me. And if you do, no hard feelings.

“While us men have been taking a browbeating for the past several decades, things are looking up! Those of us who have “made it” have our pick of the litter.” — a commenter on the article, The Worst Cities for College-Educated Women Trying to Find a Decent Date.

Runner up for my favorite comment: “So non college educated men are indecent?”

*Paging Olivia Pope*

“Ashley Madison—the website bearing the tagline “Life is Short. Have an Affair”—has released its ranking of the top 10 US cities for cheaters. It drew its conclusions from its own subscriber base, looking at which cities had the most registered users and, based on its population, the highest per capita membership. The, er, winner? Washington, DC, is king when it comes to would-be adulterers, with some 37,943 registered users and the highest per capita stats—and 30 new subscribers per day, reports the Post.” — The Best City for Cheaters is…Washington, D.C.

There are two Texas cities on this list, but thankfully, Austin is not in the top 10.

But 93% of us would marry for love.

“What are the advantages of marriage? According to the public, it is easier for a married person than a single person to raise a family (77% say so). But in other realms of life asked about in the 2010 Pew Research survey, most people do not think either married or single people have an easier time of it. In fact, about half or more think there is no difference between being married or single in the ease of having a fulfilling sex life, being financially secure, finding happiness, getting ahead in a career or having social status.” – Love and Marriage, Pew Social & Demographic Trends 

In other words, there is no rest for the weary.

So many choices nobody dates in real life anymore.

“The positive aspects of online dating are clear: the Internet makes it easier for single people to meet other single people with whom they might be compatible, raising the bar for what they consider a good relationship. But what if online dating makes it too easy to meet someone new? What if it raises the bar for a good relationship too high? What if the prospect of finding an ever-more-compatible mate with the click of a mouse means a future of relationship instability, in which we keep chasing the elusive rabbit around the dating track?” A Million First Dates: How online romance is threatening monogamy, by Dan Slater at the Atlantic

You have read some of my thoughts on my own personal disaster with online dating. I think it’s important to mention here, as I have elsewhere, that online dating for black women sucks the hardest and is the biggest waste of time. There is research to back up my personal claims: UC Berkeley found that black women had the hardest time finding a mate online, since men essentially exclude black women from their choices, regardless of their race. OKCupid changed my life with their data showing that black women are often ignored, basically, in online dating.

I mention these links, facts and statistics mostly to point out that I have never found it “too easy” to meet someone new. And I think most women would agree with me. I know a dozen black women who would also agree with me. But as Ta-Nehisi Coates writes, black people who want to date online aren’t necessarily going to OKCupid anyway — it’s just us interracial inclined women, apparently.

Anyway, I think that there’s some truth in this article, and I’m curious about Dan Slater’s book. I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

“Have I been using that word (slut) wrong this whole time?”

“Not that I’m a prude, I’ve got enough Cinemax-quality bedtime stories to keep me warm well into my dotage, but is there really no difference between being a self-aware woman making healthy sexual decisions on her own terms and being a big slutty slut?” – So We’re All Sluts Now? by my dear After Plumcake

I can’t even find the best smarty pants thing to say about her post, because it’s fantastic.

One of my favorite quotes

When I was younger, I collected inspirational quotes. They were my life lines.

Social media and networking make it easier to get a stream of motivation delivered straight to my phone much of the time, so I don’t do this at all much anymore. As a teenager, these were mini-meditations and prayers.

If you’re going through hell, keep going.

Those who say it is impossible should not interrupt the person doing it.

The challenge is to be yourself in a world that is trying to make you like everyone else.

When I first became a newspaper reporter, my mentor, Tommy Miller gave me a card bearing the Goethe quote above. Just trust yourself.

It took time and patience for me understand the fullness of that. You could probably say that about most things in life, I suppose. But trust and happiness are not my strong points.

When I finished the book in the winter, after the anniversary of my mother’s death  and in the season of winter I love — the icy winds outside while I’m inside curled up with a book — I felt a sense of something that I couldn’t quite locate. All of the natural emotions that come with completing something you’ve worked hard on were present: anxiety, pride, excitement. But there was a smaller, lighter feeling, one that I was tamping down with other things to do.

I believe normal  most people call it happiness.

I look at some skepticism with the word happy. I know that makes the title of the blog a bit ironic, but I have always aimed for happiness, even when I didn’t quite know what to do with it. When you get used to being in survival mode, instead of thriving and soaking up life’s joys, happiness feels like a tall order. It feels isolating in what one woman calls our “currency of misery” in this great blog post at OM Times, “Dare to Be Happy“:

To choose to self-love, can feel quite unpopular.  It can be lonely.  It will be challenged, and most undoubtedly tested. See this as the negative resistance of the ego and be prepared to face it – head on.  Do not take the negative resistance and challenges of others personally. If anything, see it as a sign that you are breaking free from pernicious vicious cycle of self-loathing and self-controlling ego that is causing so much pain.

Pain and misery used to be my main adversaries but they were present so often, I got used to them, like my old friends, self-doubt and depression. When you need help and comfort, when your weaknesses are on full display, people flock to you, I learned. One of my closest friends says people come into our lives to teach us lessons and then we move on to the next thing, or they stay until we have fully learned the lesson. I believe that wholeheartedly, but I don’t just hoard books – I have been a hoarder of friendships and one-sided relationships that made me feel powerful even when I was actually weak and terribly afraid.

As I’ve stepped into a happier, calmer season, I’ve let go of relationships that required that I chime in with negative news before mentioning the good in my life. I used to think of this as abandoning folks who had been there for me when I most needed them, but what I realized is that my intuition is truly my best guide, and one that I’ve honed with a lot of solitude and the inspiration of the right people. What if the happiness fades? When will the other shoe drop? Writing through these thoughts and emotions is absolutely liberating.

And the trust I have, for myself, for the process of making room for new people and new experiences, has yielded more beauty than I could have imagined. Aiming for happiness is a worthy pursuit. Maybe because we deserve to be happy, maybe because it is a part of life just like suffering and misery. Nothing lasts for ever, light or dark. To paraphrase Whitney Houston, the ride is worth whatever fall may come — if indeed it ever does.

The book party was a ton of fun. Mostly my friends and a few new faces. I did not expect my day to include a burlesque singer, but a lovely lady named Jolie Goodnight took longer to finish her set than the Spiderhouse manager expected.

A group of women showed up early. My favorite thing about writing an eBook that isn’t available as a print title is when people say, “Where is the book you wrote?” and I have to say, “On the Interwebs.” They stayed and danced a little bit, too.

And the A-List came to snap a few photos. It’s weird to have been a reporter for so long I’m not used to having my photo taken, so I smile like I’ve never been in a picture before.

I hope you all survived Valentine’s Day. For the first time in years, I didn’t feel even a little bit of sadness or insecurity. I was totally immersed in the love of my friends, coupled and single. I felt extremely lucky to hear from my favorite people and to get to see some of them, and to be in the moment with them. It was majestic!

Now we can start thinking about really important days. Like St. Patrick’s Day.