It’s funny.  I’ve loved to write for as long as I can remember.  I could write and write for hours once I overcame the challenge of coming up with some witty, clever way to start my piece.  Today, that’s a struggle because there’s so many ways I could explain how and why I’m taking on a new challenge for the next month.  So, I’ll start where all great authors have their most brilliant ideas…in the bathtub.

Dim the lights.  Light some candles.  Grab a glass of White Zin.  Turn on Matt Nathanson’s “Some Mad Hope” album.  Sink beneath the foam of a scorching hot bubble bath.  Bawl my eyes out.  Ever since the end of my first serious year and a half long relationship this has been some sort of sick ritual for me when something in my personal life goes awry.  Perhaps Matt’s lyrics made me feel like someone else understood me in those sort of dark, twisty moments.  Maybe I thought the hot water could wash away how crappy I was feeling.  Possibly if I took a few minutes to just have a good cry, I’d run out of tears.  I’ve never been one to handle heartbreak well and something about running through that ritual always makes me feel a little better.  One night after toweling off and wrapping myself up in my PJs, I hopped on Twitter and saw a friend retweet something from @thesinglewoman.  I can’t remember what the exact quote was, but it was what I needed to hear at that moment so I started to follow the account.

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ThinkStock
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Over the next couple weeks those types of tweets kept blanketing my feed.  Who was this “Single Woman?”  Where was her infinite wisdom coming from?  Why is she in my head right now?!  Those questions led me to Mandy Hale.  Hale graduated with a degree in journalism and dreamed of becoming the next Oprah.  She dabbled in TV for a bit as an assistant producer at CMT before realizing she had other passions she wanted to pursue.  She became a blogger and author.  Hale admits she’s been through her fair share of misadventures in life and love, but those misadventures have taught her that each one of them is a sentence in a bigger story.  Life isn’t meant to be the perfect fairy tale and sometimes it’s more fulfilling to write your own imperfect story.  Hale bravely and honestly shares hers with us through a series of tweets, e-books and books.

Michelle Heart/Townsquare Media Boise
Michelle Heart/Townsquare Media Boise
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I knocked out her first e-book The Single Woman’s Sassy Survival Guide: Letting Go and Moving On during a time where just about everyone in my life was looking at me scratching their heads about why I continued to let the one we nicknamed McDouche (if Mandy Hale can name the man that was in and out of her life for seven years Mr. E as homage to Carrie Bradshaw’s Mr. Big, I can name my characters as homage to Grey’s Anatomy right?) affect my moods and overall stability.   The man could’ve been wearing a cheap suit made of red flags and I would’ve overlooked them.

Even though I knew he was out and about with other women and even though I knew that I was never going to get the title of “girlfriend” in this situation, I continued to let him do what he did best…salesman me.  The man was good with words, what can I say?  He knew what to say that would keep me just within reach of pulling me back in when it was convenient for him.  The worst part is I let him do it.  I enabled it thinking someday he’d realize how awesome I really am, how he couldn’t live without me and would we’d live happily ever after.  ::facepalm::  How naïve.  My friends pretty much told me I was naïve and the whole thing was a bad, bad situation but it was Mandy Hale’s words that got through to me in that e-book.  “No matter how attractive a person’s potential may be…you have to date their reality.”  Whoa.  That was deep, real and spoke to me more gently than anything my friends had offered me.  It was the “A-ha!” moment that allowed me to begin moving forward with my life.

Michelle Heart/Townsquare Media Boise
Michelle Heart/Townsquare Media Boise
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I had a lot of other “A-ha!” moments reading her first full book, The Single Woman: Life, Love and a Dash of Sass.  In the book Hale says “Your message, your ministry and your influence are built from your flaws.  People relate to humanity, not perfection.”  This is exactly why I adore her.  Her honesty makes the advice she’s trying to give other women empowering, sincere and it doesn’t come across in such a blunt, accusatory way that your self-esteem is reduced to that of a high school freshman with painful acne and colorful braces wanting to disappear into a puddle on the floor.  Her books have made me take some time to be honest with myself about my flaws and quite frankly given me something to feel good about at the same time.  That’s why I’m going all in for Hale’s “The Single Woman’s 30 Day Blog Challenge.”  For the next 30 days I promise to be open, honest and hopefully learn a lot about myself as I work through Mandy’s prompts.

Want to take the journey with me?  Check out the list of topics, use #TheSW30 and tweet me (@michelleonkiss) your responses!   I’d love to bond with the other single women of the Treasure Valley!

 

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