You Can Choose Love

You can choose to stand by your man. Your man, who apart from dimply-cheeks and carefully-carved promises that are actually quite hollow once you get past the surface, isn’t worth your time. You can choose to play the part of the girl who changed it all, even when you know it’s hard enough to change yourself, much less a stubborn male you’ve only known briefly. You can choose to spend your Saturdays with him, instead of your friends, and when those gals doubt his luster, you can choose to turn on them, just to lay on your back with him. You can choose to stay in that dead-end relationship, pretending – and hoping and praying – that you’ll get the happily-ever-after ending you can see if you squint just enough. You can choose to see the tiniest pieces of good and mindfully ignore the bad, though you constantly feel it stabbing your side, and sinking into your heart.

Or, you can choose to walk away from the man you’re afraid to leave and find one who will never let you go because he knows how precious you truly are.

You can choose to wallow in the shattered pieces of your pride and remember the better days that really, weren’t that bright if you’re honest with yourself. You can choose to toss what-really-happened and what-you-wanted-to-happen up in the air a dozen times, trying to get the best scenerio that makes you feel like the pain is bearable. You can choose to hover over your phone and your email, wondering if he’ll come chasing with the right words and the sweetest of intentions, even though you know silence will ring louder than any grand gesture he’s capable of. You can admire those smiling, rosy faces in stilted pictures that have since turned into bittersweet memories you only let yourself remember when you’ve had just a bit too much to drink. You can analyze the situation until there are no thoughts left in your pretty little mind, no tears left in those pretty little eyes or no fight left in that mighty spirit you’ve always been so damn proud of.

Or, you can choose that today, right now, enough is enough. And you, are more than enough than he will ever be or ever be able to offer you. You can choose it’s time to let go.

You can choose to stay comfortable right where you are, doing whatever you’re doing, being whoever you’ve become, and just let your life take place. You can choose to believe those dreams you once had are just a bit too lofty, much further out of reach than your more-naive self imagined. You can choose to believe those who told you that you just couldn’t do it, that you weren’t meant for such amazing things, that you weren’t talented enough to achieve it all. You can choose to take those jaded once-upon-a-time lovers’ words as gospel instead of with a grain of salt. You can choose to think your only skills are in servicing a man who doesn’t deserve you to begin with. You can choose to never chase anything more than your youth and your sense of self, two things you lost when you decided to let go of what you wanted, and settled for what you had.

Or, you can step out into the unknown and find the incredible person you’ve always been, but have yet to get to know.

You can choose to just stay in on Friday night, and promise yourself you’ll go out next week. You can choose Chinese food and wine over high-heels and flirty conversations for weeks that easily turn into months. You can choose to pick apart your dates to death, finding something intolerably wrong with them all, while wishing you could just meet someone great…without it being so much, well, work. You can choose to reject a guy just because he doesn’t meet your robust list of qualifications, though he may give you the best orgasm of your life, if you let him try. You can choose to believe there are just no good men left in the world – or they’re just gay or taken already – and you can seek out a life of flying-solo because you’re far too terrified to risk your heart on that paralyzing feeling of…falling…again.

Or, you can choose to jump when the time feels right, stay put when it doesn’t, and know that some chances (and mistakes) are worth making over and over because they’re just that important.

You can choose to color your wardrobe and your outlook as black as the streets you walk on. You can choose to believe the criticisms of men who called you demanding when you told them what you needed, and they couldn’t deliver. Or the ones who named you hot-to-handle when you stood your ground, when they wanted you to crumble before them. You can choose to put your heart on so much of a back-burner that you forget what those tingling notions bubbling out from the scars you thought you’d never heal, really feel like. You can choose to live in the past and stop picturing the future, for fear that dreaming seemingly-impossible things will make them so. You can choose to give up on yourself and on that person you’re so wanting to meet. You can say “no” to that guy who wants to take you out on just one simple date.

Or you can choose to say “Yes.” You can choose to believe whatever you want to believe. You can choose to be whoever you want to be. You can choose to live that life you wanted, with all the right people in it.

You can choose yourself. You can choose…love.