On this Valentines day, 2011, most of the day I celebrated all the tremendous love in my life. Friends, family and the witnessing of the love of my many friends that are in gorgeous partnerships. It wasn't till I was driving home (from a very satisfying day in my Yoga teacher training with Christy Marsden) in thick traffic full of people heading out to celebrate with their lovers, that I began to feel a deep sadness well up in me. I am no stranger to being single, and in fact have been single more than not most of my adult life. I have grown accustomed to feeling varying degrees of alone-ness, and actually love has always been a little mixed with sadness for me. Usually, though, I tend to sink into feeling sorry for myself a bit, or conversely, burying the emotion entirely. This time, rather than talk myself out of the feeling, I let it be and breathed into it.

After only a few moments I recognized that the TONE of my emotion has changed. There is now a beauty to my sadness. Where once, I felt despair and jealousy of others romantic success (when compared to my relative romantic failures), this new percolation of emotion feels more like a soft yearning. The rooted and whole desire of a strong and capable WOMAN, ready to be utterly TAKEN by a competent man. No longer the tantrums of a child wishing to be loved, but a woman full of love and yearning to burst under the skillful touch of a powerful man.

Most of my dating life I have rejected overt romance, thinking I was a woman that didn't NEED all the "frivolous" gestures that seemed to annoy most men. Flowers, remembering birthdays, surprises and gifts. I dated only one man that was "romantic" in these ways and I rejected it. Clearly I hadn't yet learned to joys of receiving! I have come to find out that I have a VERY romantic and soft heart that does indeed desire to be cherished by a sexy and inventive man... Flowers on my pillow, candles lit and a bath drawn when I come home, ravishing me in a deserted hallway on the way back from dinner, surprise weekends away to somewhere delicious. I am ready to cherish and be cherished, to surrender and be taken, to RISE into an expansive love affair. So, even as I feel the sadness of being sans lover, I CELEBRATE. For finally.. My heart has matured and ripened into the heart of a WOMAN, ready for her MAN.