Unrequited love, bad relationships and bitter breakups continue to taint views on dating + relationships. They're constantly stopping our attempts at loving others fully and adversely affecting the way we love ourselves. Heartbreak has a way of forcing us back into the dark cocoons we busted out of when we thought we were ready to be butterflies. Butterflies get hurt too. 

But you're human, so instead you build a wall and hide yourself behind it. You let your freshly crushed heart fuel you enough to lay each brick for this barrier. You build it a few inches higher than your high bun, and vow that whoever wants to get through it has to muster up as much strength as you used to build it. You make everyone after Eric, Steven or Marcus, break down that wall like your love is some type of obstacle course. Like courting you is a Tough Mudder Competition. Like dating isn't challenging enough, without adding this responsibility onto the new guy. 

A responsibility that isn't even his to uphold. 

Much like revisiting the cocoon does nothing for a butterfly, this wall will do nothing for you. It won't help you find the good men any more than no wall will. Walls weren't purposed to assist you in selecting suitable mates, they're purposed to keep them out. They're created to block access. They're used to separate. 

Barricading yourself behind a wall will not help you weed out the unworthy. 'Protecting' yourself from hurt and pain won't help you find the one who has no intent to hurt you. All it will do, is block them all from getting through to you. 

I know because I'm human, too, and I've had a wall. Shoot, my wall was triple layered; even if you got past the first one, there were two more waiting. I was hurt, broken and alone. So I gathered the bricks that were thrown at me and used them all to build a barrier. I sat myself comfortably behind it with my JET magazine and green tea, waiting for a noble man to break through. I believe if he was worthy, he'd see my value and know I'd be worth the labor. But how could anyone see me if I'm crouching on the other side of a border? 

I ran out of tea bags. I peeked atop the triple layered brick wall (not to be confused with a triple decker chocolate cake) and noticed the potential candidates gasping for air on the other side. One layer almost chipped through but the others still tall. And me, still lonely...with no tea. 

You have to be open. You have to be willing. And you have to be fearless.  Love is far too rewarding to hide yourself behind a wall. It's too tantilizing to seat yourself in darkness behind blockades of bricks. The journey is too fulfilling to be sitting on the other side of unbreakable cement blocks and siding. Because Yetti's kind of love is real.  The "I love you even more with every minute I spend with you" love is real. The "I'm genuinely interested in you and need nothing in return but your time" courtship is real. Because the "I care for you and will hold your heart closer than I do mine" men are real. But it, and he, cannot break down your wall; and your walls cannot heal your broken heart.

Don't hurt. Don't be afraid, and please don't seek comfort in the cocoon you intentionally outgrew as you sought to become a butterfly. Don't backtrack or regret any bit of the decisions you've made when you got your wings. Don't fester on the pain from the last time you fell - out of the sky, or in love. You're still a butterfly and you're still very able to fly. Even if you are only human.