When Love Comes Calling

by dr. terri

As we close out another year, I'm sure some of us are still riding high on this holiday season. But there are those of us who dreaded every minitue of it. We dreaded it because we never seem to experience the picture perfect holiday. We want our money to be flowing, our homes to be decorated exquisitely, our love lives to be fairytale-like, and our bodies to be an ideal weight. Without these things, we feel as if the lyrics "Christmas just ain't Christmas without the one you love" is our annual holiday anthem. So once again, we missed it. Missed what? We missed the chance to simply be joyfully present--all because we believe [romantic] love didn't come calling for us.

Unfortunately, so many of us are missing our own lives because we insist on visiting the lives of other people. We're always over there--looking around, snooping, oo'ing and ah'ing, envying (excuse me--admiring) what everybody else has going on for themselves. In the meantime, we complain about our own lives not being big enough, esquisite enough, enviable enough. We come home to ourselves with feelings of something being wrong with us. We say to ourselves: Why doesn't anyone see me? Why did she get him? Why did they get that? Why don't I have all of that staged happiness in my pics? Why didn't love come calling for me? Why, why, why?

If this sounds like you, just stop. Breathe. It's time to come to yourself and make yourself at-home in your own life. After all, if you're never there, how can you expect somebody to be there with you? Go home already. And that doesn't mean become a work-a-holic, a whorester, or a hermit just to numb the pain or to drown your sorrows--yes, you read that correctly. Instead, go to the home within your own mind, body, spirit, and soul. There is where you can begin to appreciate you by making a life for yourself on purpose.

Listen, making a life for yourself on purpose is about enjoying your own company with or without the constant presence of others. It's entertaining guests at your home, joining cause-worthy organizations, traveling to visit friends and family, decluttering your space, developing platonic cross-sex friendships, balancing your budget, eating right and exercising, reading more, and becoming a more sensual woman. These are all things that can refresh your life (whether single or coupled) and make it more welcoming to you and to others. Are they guarantees for getting the fairytale romance you desire? No, absolutely not. But they do guarantee that life won't keep passing you by as you await the real romantic love you deserve.

So as we sit on the dawn of a new year (and say goodbye to one of the most pecular years thus far of the millennium), prepare to be joyfully present for this next one. Stop visiting everyone else's life and start inviting them into yours. And who knows this time next year, you may actually be at-home when love comes calling for you.

Have an amazingly blessed 2017! Stay + y'all...

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dr. terri is an educator, empowerment writer, and entrepreneur,

who provides education planning, writing guidance, and life-mapping services to the sisterhood and those they love.

To learn more about her services, visit www.withdrterri.com. For the online women's center, visit www.stillsosexy.com.