I believe in love.

That's tough for a 34 year old black man to say.

After years of hearing how much of a problem black men are and how we never commit I am proud to say that I have stuck with the same ideology for a number of years of my life.

I believe in love.

I think it started when I was in Kindergarten and I met a beautiful chocolate honey who was all cute with her pig tails and pink dress. We held hands forever one day and I knew that she was mine.

I knew the dangers of love as I got my heart broken the next day. She was holding hands with someone else and looking at them with the same dreamy eyed stare she gave me.

That didn't sway me from my belief though.

I still believed in love.

Love became my religion and I became its most ardent supporter as I grew up into my teenage years.

I found myself dating a lot back then with a number of young women who had their own interpretation of love. Frequently I got my heart broken as many relationships that I tried to cultivate ended for one reason or another.

I chalked up these breakups as youthful indiscretion on the part of myself and the girls involved. My world was young at that time and I knew that better things were on the horizon.

I was going to meet my college sweetheart, fall in love and get married. Babies were going to come and I was going finally make my sacrifice to the church of love.

Things didn't go as I planned.

I spent several years going from woman to woman as I tried to manufacture that feeling I had been told about in many love songs and romantic comedies.

Each relationship ended without fanfare but I still believed in love.

Love was all knowing.

Love was all powerful.

Love concurred all.

I kept that feeling with me, warmed by the fact that I knew of the power that the people that left me did not. I did so because I knew what was on the horizon.

Then....

I met a woman.

Fell in love with said woman.

I knew I had finally hit the jackpot ... I was finally going to get everything I believe in. Love was going to make my dreams come true.

Of course I didn't have the instructions on how I was supposed to live with this love. It was like a drug I could not shake....

I found myself spending money on this Love.

I found myself lying to my friends about this love.

I found myself compromising my ideals for this love.

It was too much for me. So much so that when the love ended it was as if I was suddenly had my drug taken away.

I've been in rehab ever since.

Sometimes the pain is so intense that I feel like crying.

The pain is so intense that I feel like dying.

Of course I know that love wouldn't do that too me. So like a junkie on his first hit I keep waiting....and waiting....for true love to finally show up.

But what does this do for me.

I'll be talking about this love in the weeks and months I will be blogging. I need to get this love out of my system because like it or not it makes it not possible for me to love the true love of my life.

The woman I just left was not THE ONE. THE ONE is out there for me ....

I just wish she would hurry up because I'm tired of worshiping alone.