Don't settle, don't lower your standards. Wait for the guy who truly loves you.

You deserve someone who will smile at your silly jokes, who will kiss your forehead when you’ve had a long day

You deserve a guy who doesn’t just spend the night, but spends the morning.

Who hums your favorite song, off-key and awkward, just to make you laugh. Who takes you on a walk to his favorite hill in town, and kisses you as the sun sets.

Don’t settle for the boy who plays mind games, who calls you hurtful names, who spins you around in his lies until you’re so dizzy and tired you just give in.

Don’t settle for the guy who sees only a face, only a body, because sweet girl, you will always be more than a body.

I know you might feel lost right now. You might be scared. You might be terrified of being lonely. And you might be thinking this is it, this is all there is. But I promise you, there’s so much more.

There will be a man whose fingers will trace the freckles on your cheeks and send goosebumps down your back. Whose arms will hold you during the fireworks on the fourth of July. Whose lips will taste like your Mike’s Hard Lemonade because he won’t stop kissing you. Whose smile will make your head spin like you’re drunk, but even better.

There will be a man who will answer your calls, who will take you on dates, who will, despite the distance and despite the childish boys of your past, truly love you, choose you. Every. Single. Day.

So please promise me this: That you will hold out for him. That you won’t settle for the cheapened version of love. That you won’t kiss away the unsatisfied taste on your tongue. That you won’t go to bed next to someone else, wishing for more.

There will be more. So much more.

Don’t settle for anything less than excitement and jumping beans in the pit of your stomach. Nothing less than forever. Nothing less than knowing, beyond on a doubt that this is love.

Because I promise, you’ll find it. And it will be more beautiful than you ever imagined.

 We loved with a love that was more than love. 

I stepped into the bookshop and breathed in that perfume of paper & magic that, strangely, no one had ever thought of bottling.

Lately I've been thinking about who I want to love, and how I want to love, and why I want to love the way I want to love and what I need to learn to love that way, and who I need to become the kind of love I want to be. And when I break it all down, when I whittle it into a single breath, it essentially comes out like this: Before I die, I want to be somebody's favorite hiding place, the place they can put everything they know they need to survive, every secret, every solitude, every nervous prayer and be absolutely certain, I will keep it safe. I will keep it safe.

I Want to Love You Freely

I want to set you free.

I want you to know what it feels like to not have an agenda silently placed around you, constricting you. I do not seek to capture you, because all of the most beautiful things are wild, organic, unhindered.

I want to love you in such a way that you are free to set out in search of all the hidden places of yourself, even when I don’t understand them. I want that love to be a gentle breeze that begets freedom. I want to choose you, because I believe in your life.

I want us to dance, but not for us to become one. You and I, as close as we may grow, are two separate islands. And I want the fire and smoke that we use to communicate over the ocean of Being to be sacred, whole and holy.

While you have been free to live and explore, I have been granted the same grace. And while we have been learning and growing, we have also been building a home for all that is sacred in our lives.

Because we have loved each other freely and fiercely, we have kept each other sacred.

Because we have kept one another sacred, we have built a home that is bound by God, and her grace weathers any storm that the shadows of life may cast over us.

When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity—in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern. The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. For relationships too must be like islands. One must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits—islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, continually visited and abandoned by the tides.

Yes, I’m single. No, I’m not lying. 

In truth, I’m single because I have lost the ability to settle.

I don’t just want company—I want to be wowed, and in all honesty I’m not wowed that easily.

The funny thing is, it’s not about what kind of car a man drives, nor is it found in his possessions, that he brags about, as supposed evidence of his character and worth.

No, what I am looking for can’t be found in any material things.

It’s found in the eyes of a man and in his heart.

The way he approaches the world and how his life is evidence of what he stands for. I’ve realized that I’m not after just any man—I’m only in pursuit of someone who burns as passionately as I do.

The fact is, I don’t really want a boyfriend.

I don’t need someone to play house with and pass the time until we eventually realize we want different things. I don’t need to learn any more lessons from dating different versions of the same man, nor do I need someone to reflect all of my daddy issues or self-worth back to me.

I’ve got this. I’m not looking for a bargain basement kind of love.

I won’t be sifting through discount love in an attempt to have something, because I would much rather wait it out, do me, and be ready when someone of my caliber and energy level comes around.

I’m honestly single because I am a lot to handle—with colours that defy the logical and a taste that lingers upon the heart. It’s okay that I’m not everyone’s cup of tea—but what I am will be the right fit for someone who understands the complexities of my contradictions.

I enjoy my own company, and that of friends and family so much that the only reason I would accept an invitation by a prospective man is if I felt he could add something to my already full life.

I want someone whose dreams are just as full as mine, who aspires to a life they can attain with hard work and dedication.

I’m waiting for someone who can match my strength. He will be strong enough so that I don’t always have to be strong. I’m not looking for someone to be like me, but to complement me.

Perhaps the biggest reason that I am still single is that I know exactly what I want.

I am looking for presence in a man. He’ll know how I should be spoken to and how to ignite a fire inside my belly. The fact that I don’t yet have this is okay with me because I do have faith that I will one day.

So, why am I still single?

Because I have decided not to accept less than what I deserve. I have learned that my worth doesn’t lay in the hands of a man. I wake up each day absolutely in love with my life.

Until the day comes when a man comes into my life and enhances what is already here, I will remain single because I’ve found myself. And that is more than half the battle of finding another.