I wasn't always this ridiculous.

There was a time in my life when I genuinely believed love was something you earned.

Like a rewards program.

Spend enough money. Do enough favors. Be useful enough. Make his life easier enough.

Swallow enough of yourself. Collect 10,000 emotional trauma points and eventually - CONGRATULATIONS!!! - you unlock basic affection.

Except apparently I had the world’s shittiest rewards program.

My last long-term relationship taught me a lot about myself, although most of those lessons came with an absolutely horrifying price tag.

And I mean that literally.

In the beginning, I would have done almost anything to make this man love me.

Actually, scratch that.

I DID almost anything.

I bought him a $35,000 side-by-side.

Because apparently a nice dinner wasn’t dramatic enough for me.

I bought him a special-edition handgun. I gave him a truck I owned to use as his own.

When he asked me to move in with him, the house desperately needed repairs and updating, so I took out a loan to help renovate it.

Because nothing says healthy new chapter quite like taking out debt on a house you don’t own.

We were also combining six dogs, which honestly should have qualified us for either a reality show or federal assistance.

I paid a good portion of our bills.

When he wanted to open a business, I became his partner because my employment and financial history gave the business more credibility. I already had a full-time job, but I still helped build this thing with him because that’s what you do when you believe you’re building a life together.

The problem was, I had a full-time job.

He didn’t.

And somehow I was still the one carrying far too much of the business.

Three years later, we dissolved it because of staffing problems and because I simply couldn’t keep working a full-time job while also trying to carry a business that I wasn’t supposed to be running by myself.

Then came the fun surprise.

He had defaulted on state taxes.

Because my name was attached to the business and I was the one with actual wages, guess whose paycheck became collectible?

Hi. It’s me.

Forty-two thousand dollars.

My wages have been garnished to repay a debt from a business that no longer exists, from a life I no longer live, with a man I am no longer with.

Nothing says “moving on” quite like the state reaching into your paycheck bi-weekly and whispering: Remember him?

Oh, I remember.

But money wasn't actually the most expensive thing I lost in that relationship.

I lost pieces of myself.

I helped raise his son through his teenage years. I drove him to school in the mornings. I cooked. I cared. I helped create a home and a family.

I bought a hot tub for the backyard oasis we dreamed about creating. I helped pay for central air.

I poured money, time, energy, love and myself into a future I genuinely believed we were building together.

And through all of it, I was desperate for one thing.

His approval.

Because behind closed doors, I was constantly being picked apart.

How I looked.

Things I said.

How I acted.

My personality.

I was made fun of enough that eventually I started questioning myself before anyone else had the chance.

Was that stupid?

Did I embarrass him?

Am I being annoying?

Am I talking too much?

Should I shut up?

Do I look ridiculous?

I was a grown woman who somehow felt like a child waiting to find out whether I'd behaved correctly.

And that is such a strange thing to realize about yourself afterward.

I wasn't stupid.

I wasn't weak.

I was insecure because I was living in an environment that constantly fed my insecurity.

I wanted him to tell me I was good enough.

So I kept giving.

Maybe this will do it.

Maybe if I help more.

Maybe if I buy this.

Maybe if I pay for that.

Maybe if I make his life easier.

Maybe if I'm quieter.

Maybe if I'm less sarcastic.

Maybe if I take up a little less space.

Maybe then he'll love me the way I need to be loved.

It took two years for him to actually tell me he loved me.

Eventually, there was a promise ring at Christmas - a promise that he wanted to spend his life with me.

And I believed it.

Until life got hard.

I finally said I needed more.

Not another gift.

Not another promise.

More effort.

More partnership.

More fight.

I needed to know that when things got difficult, I mattered enough to fight for.

And when that didn't happen, I walked away.

With nothing.

Actually, that's not entirely true.

I walked away with debt.

So...yay?

I had to rebuild my life from the ground up.

Again.

And somewhere in that rebuilding, something happened that I didn't expect.

I started finding myself again.

The sarcastic one.

The ridiculous one.

The woman who says wildly inappropriate things at exactly the wrong time and then laughs harder because everyone is horrified.

The woman who tells stories.

The woman who loves hard.

The woman who is emotional and sentimental and loud and funny and sometimes completely unhinged.

The woman who started Coffee, Chaos & Kelly and willingly puts pieces of her life on the internet for strangers to read.

THIS?

This blog?

Absolutely fucking not.

There is no universe where I could have done this in that relationship.

Being this open?

Talking about my life?

Being vulnerable?

Making people laugh at my ridiculousness?

Putting myself out there where other people might actually pay attention to me?

Nope.

I would have been shot down before I ever got started.

Ridiculed.

Made to feel stupid.

Because there wasn't room for both of us to take up space.

And for a very long time, I made myself smaller so someone else could feel bigger.

Then came Jet.

And one of the greatest things he has ever given me didn't cost $35,000.

It didn't come with a loan.

It doesn't have monthly payments.

And the state can't garnish it.

He gave me room.

Room to be myself.

He lets me be ridiculous.

He humors my nonsense.

He laughs with me instead of making me feel like everyone is laughing at me.

And somewhere along the way, something even better happened.

He started getting ridiculous too.

The quieter man I met started coming out of his shell.

We joke.

We tease.

We act like idiots.

We laugh.

We enjoy our life.

Neither one of us has to shrink so the other one can shine.

And maybe that's what I misunderstood about love for so long.

Love isn't supposed to make you audition every day for another season.

You shouldn't have to buy it.

Finance it.

Earn it.

Perform for it.

Or make yourself smaller to keep it.

The right person doesn't love you despite the things that make you you.

They enjoy them.

Jet doesn't give me permission to be myself.

I don't need anyone's permission anymore.

But he gives me something I didn't realize I had been missing for years:

A safe place to be her.

And now I get to watch this version of myself blossom.

She's sarcastic.

She's vulnerable.

She's loud sometimes.

She's ridiculous.

She overshares.

She writes a blog called Coffee, Chaos & Kelly because apparently privacy was getting boring.

She has baggage.

She has debt.

She has stories.

Jesus Christ, does she have stories.

But she's free.

And the craziest part?

After spending years desperately trying to get someone else to approve of her...

I finally fucking love her.