Am I a Starbucks pastry?

I've been going through some internal conflict as of late about my ability to open up and welcome love into my life. I spend a good part of my days & nights writing inspirational articles and quotes designed to empower women to just be themselves, to put their hearts out there and bet on love and to live out one of the greatest 4-letter words that ever existed - RISK. The last thing I want to be is someone who talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk. As a result, I have really called myself to the carpet lately in an effort to discern if I am, in fact, putting myself out there as I encourage other ladies to do daily.

This "perfect storm" of self awareness has been brewing for a few weeks now, but really came to a head a few days ago when I met an old guy friend of mine for dinner. This is someone who I have known for almost a decade and who arguably knows me better than most people in the world, even when we go months or even years without seeing each other. After excitedly telling him about all the cool things that have been going on in my life lately & asking for his opinion on a few matters of the heart, I waited to hear his take on everything...and when he spoke, his words took me back a little. "You seem guarded to me," he said. "I feel like that everything you've been through and all the times you've been hurt have left you with a bit of a wall around your heart."

WOW. Those were not the words I was expecting to hear.

I ended a year and a half long relationship back in October because I knew in my heart of hearts that it was not where I belonged. I knew there was no future. I knew he could never love me the way I need to be loved, and that I would always feel like something was missing. So I walked. I walked and I never looked back and it was probably the best decision I have made in my life thus far.

The past few months since the breakup have been one glorious adventure after another, of self discovery and enlightenment and really defining what I want out of life and what I dream of and figuring out ways to make it all come true. I have felt more ALIVE since October than I have in my entire life. I finally know who I am and why I'm here - now all I have to do is do my part of the work and leave the rest in God's hands. I have, perhaps foolishly, believed that I am finally open and receptive and, as India Arie says, "Ready for Love." But am I?

My love life has, in the past, tended to be a bit of a plane that taxies down the runway but never quite gains enough momentum to get off the ground. This has not changed since the breakup in October. I meet guys - have no trouble meeting them, actually - we talk for a few days or weeks (and in some really unfortunate cases - hours) and just as it seems to really be picking up speed and about to lift off - BAM! A bird flies into the propeller and the whole thing comes crashing down. Typically the only thing lost in the crash is the guy, and he usually vanishes without a trace. Inexplicably and seemingly without reason. He completely drops off the radar. If you have a man in your life that you want to get rid of for good, send him my way, because I seem to be the proverbial Bermuda Triangle for the male species.

Take Military Boy, for example. One night a couple of months ago, my friends dared me to do the unthinkable - go up to a random guy in a bar and kiss him. Just lay one on him, without so much as introducing myself or saying hello or anything. They dared me to do this because they know that this is NOT AT ALL the type of thing I usually do, and I, in fact, had never done such a thing in my life. I had always read about girls who did this and saw it in movies, but never dared to be so brazen and bold myself. (Although I secretly longed to be like those girls.) So, not one to back down from a dare, later than night, I picked my target, walked up to him with confidence and swagger, and laid the biggest, hottest, most fabulous kiss I've ever delivered in all of my life on him. To say it went over well would be an understatement. His friends hooted and hollered, my friends gasped and cheered and his face, once the kiss ended, looked like a kid that had just seen the face of God. (Not comparing myself to God here, folks, but it turned out the kid was 23, so at his young and abbreviated age, a random girl coming up and sticking her tongue down his throat probably was pretty darn close to a religious experience.) Anyway - great kiss, great experience, great night. So great that this very determined 23-year-old Military Boy found me on Facebook a few days later - and thus began a month-long Facebook flirtation that was fun and innocent and yet shockingly, actually seemed to be headed somewhere. He was funny and kind and made me smile and I was really kind of excited about the prospect of a new romantic prospect. Things seemed to really come to a head the week before Valentine's weekend, when he wrote to ask me what I was doing that weekend and indicated he wanted to take me to see Avatar. I wrote back and gave all the right signals that I would be up for accompanying him to a cinematic adventure (all the while already mentally picking out the perfect "Valentine's date" outfit) and then...guess what happened? He never responded again. Never wrote back. NOTHING. Literally dropped off the planet, or at least my corner of the planet. We are still Facebook friends, but he has never again since that last message reached out to me in any way, shape or form. It was one of the most puzzling experiences ever. (Well, at least until the next puzzling experience. And the next. Oh, and then the one after that.)

I could list example after example of situations like this, but I won't. Suffice it to say that it feels like every time a guy comes along that I get really, truly excited about, it seems like the very second I start to open myself up to the whole thing, Mr. Wonderful vanishes. As John Mayer's lyrics to "All We Ever Do is Say Goodbye" say: "I bought a ticket on a plane, and by the time it landed, you were gone again." I feel that way constantly. Like the minute I buy a ticket to Destination Unknown and decide to see my crush through, the guy pulls a disappearing act while my flight's still in the air. By the time my heart lands on someone, they're gone. I have to ask myself "Why?" and "What am I doing wrong?" and "Is it me, or is it them?"

All of this soul searching led me to a rather unwelcome conclusion earlier, as I was strolling through downtown with one of my best girlfriends. We were discussing how she seems to have the opposite problem, if you can call it a problem, in that guys she meets always seem to fall for her the very second they meet her. It's like she barely has to open her mouth and speak and they think she's adorable and want to marry her. In the midst of discussing this, I started relaying to her how I had eaten a rice krispie treat from Starbucks earlier that day and how it was horrible. It looked DELICIOUS, and mouth watering and oh-so-yummy at first glance, but to bite into it was like chewing on cardboard. I was in the middle of yammering on and on about how all of Starbucks pastries tend to be like that (well, except for the low-fat cinnamon swirl coffee cake, and that's just a little piece of heaven in a bag) - you know, magically delicious in appearance but when you bite into them, pure disappointment, when a positively horrifying thought occurred to me. Am I a Starbucks pastry? Pleasing to look at and entertaining enough for the first couple of bites until you really get into me, then I just turn into a big slab of boring, beige cardboard? Surely that can't be it. After talking me down from the ledge of the pedestrian bridge (kidding), my girlfriend assured me that I am in no way a Starbucks pastry, but the thought of it has haunted me all day nonetheless. Maybe I am a Starbucks pastry. It would at least explain why guys seem to bite into me and then spit me out just as quickly.

I wish I could say I had the magic answer and that all this soul searching has led me to some life changing concusion about love and life, but so far, it hasn't. I like to think of myself as open and vulnerable and really "out there" and available emotionally, but maybe at the end of the day, my fear of getting burned has turned me into a Starbucks pastry. I want to be delicious, I long to be delicious, but the cardboard walls around my heart have put the colorful and alive and audacious and fearless parts of me on lockdown, and while they are protecting me from pain, they are also protecting me from love.

I guess the good news in all of this is that cardboard can be burned down and even the driest, toughest, most tasteless Starbucks pastry can be sweetened and turned into something beautiful. I guess if you are a Starbucks pastry and you wanna be a Cinnabon cinnamon role, you have your work cut out for you - but isn't it worth it? I mean, c'mon, who doesn't want a Cinnabon cinnamon roll, with all it's luscious sugary beauty and melt in your mouth yumminess?

At the end of the day, even if you think you're risking it all, I guess my advice would be to risk a little more. Put yourself out there to a degree of complete vulnerability and let the chips fall where they may. Never let a chance for love pass you by because you're scared. What's worse - living with the fear of being vulnerable and possibly getting hurt or living with the reality of regret and definitely getting hurt? I think we all have a little bit of Cinnabon roll and a little bit of Starbucks pastry in us. All that matters in the end is that you choose to take the heat and refuse to get outta the kitchen until your inner Cinnabon gets brave enough to come out and play.