I wanted to curl up and cry.

Instead I showed up for the online Zoom class I registered for, and cried in front of 4 women I didn’t know.

Just a few short hours before this, I was enjoying my regular Saturday morning yoga class and feeling pretty excited, albeit, nervous about my post yoga lunch “date”.

I had been curious about this guy for months, years even. He’s super cute, appears genuine and down to earth, practices yoga and I genuinely wanted to know more about him; and I’m not gonna lie, a part of me was definitely fantasizing about more, if you know what I mean.

So I did something I’ve never thought I would do – I asked him to lunch!

Of course I went round and round in my head about it, asked friends and my coach about it, but then I just decided to do it! What was the worst that could happen? He would say no, but I just kinda knew that wouldn’t happen, and neither did anyone else, so I did it. And he said yes.

For the first time in a long time it felt like a real possibility that this could be something, that we could click, and maybe this lunch “date” could lead to another…

So there we were, eating vegan goodness and talking it up, yeah, I was feeling a little nervous, I had a lot riding on this (mentally), and I could feel that pressure in my body. I had to intentionally remind myself to relax (on the inside, of course!)

Then it happens, he’s telling me how he winds down from work for the evening, when the bomb drops – “you just have to find someone it works for, and I’ve been lucky enough to find that; we just decided to be exclusive a couple weeks ago.”

He’s dating someone.

My excitement about that possibility for me, for us, crashed and burned in a single moment.

I barely hear him when he asks, “how’s your dating life going?”

I froze. No words. I felt locked up.

WTF is happening?! What do I do? What do I say?!

Nothing but “good” came out.

Which was so incredibly vague. But what could I say?! “Oh I was hoping that maybe this could be a date.”

LOL!

Over the last few years I’ve worked really hard at seeing things differently, more positively; seeing life experiences like this one as driftwood that my husband is closer, rather than a disaster that is showing me I won’t have what I want.

I’ve learned how to speak what I desire, and I believe that your thoughts create things, so the last thing I wanted to do in that moment was agree with him when he said, “it has to be hard sometimes, the last girl I dated showed me the pool of men she sees on Bumble, and compared to the quality of women I see, it has to be hard.”

But the truth is, IT IS HARD!

Not ALL the time, but there are definitely hard moments, and this for me was a HARD moment.

What could I do, except pull myself together and live out the rest of this lunch until I could leave and tell my friends how great it was, until it wasn’t.

And that’s what I did.

We wrapped it up with a hug and I solemnly made my way home, where

I cried on and off for two days straight; Most of those tears being shed in front of women I didn’t even know over a writing course that helped heal me in a lot of ways that weekend.

Ya know, I didn’t know how much I needed to cry those tears. I didn’t realize I was holding myself together so tightly, with an “everything’s all good over here” smile on my face, and “My man is here” mentality. I didn’t know how much I truly needed to let go of what it might look like. What I might look like.

3 years ago I would have rolled this over and over in my mind, I would have made myself wrong for not asking him sooner, if I hadn’t waited weeks and weeks to ask him, he wouldn’t have been dating the girl, and then my fantasy would have been fulfilled. I would have sulked about it for months, and made it all mean I wasn’t good enough. For him. Or anyone.

Today I know better,

I can see the world is just as it should be, for me and for him;

I can be proud of my courage to take a chance and see what would happen, I can be happy I have a new friend, and I can feel good that I had a hard moment, let it be hard, and learn from it.

It’s not always easy out there, but just maybe me sharing this experience with you, sparks you to take inspired action on behalf of your dreams, be it in love or with something else.

All Love,
Lena

In the comments below – Tell me, what’s been your hardest moment in love?