What happens when the one thing you've wanted more than anything else in your life is to love and be loved, but you don't actually know what love is?

This Sunday Stroll is an emotional one.

I find myself remembering a morning during Sharon's cancer treatments when I woke up and discovered she wasn't in the lift chair where she'd been sleeping. The panic, the helplessness, and the anger at everything life had already thrown at us came rushing back.

Childhood abuse. Sexual abuse. My suicide attempt. The death of my infant son, Malachi. And now, watching my wife endure two cancers.

How much fucking shit was I supposed to carry?

But this morning, November 1, 2026, Sharon and I shared another moment of intimacy that reminded me how much my understanding of love has changed.

For much of my life, I allowed other people to define love for me. I entered marriages, adopted religious beliefs, and tried to become someone I thought another person could love. Eventually, I began asking what kindness, compassion, and love actually meant to me—and whether I was extending any of those things to myself.

I'm not suggesting that grief disappears or that we can affirm our way past painful experiences. I'm talking about an unfolding understanding of myself and a relationship that continues to surprise me.

I also share a song I wrote during Sharon's cancer journey, followed by some thoughts I hadn't planned to record about feeling unlovable, wanting to belong, and discovering a kind of love I once couldn't imagine experiencing.

When did you start making your own choices? And how many of those choices are actually yours, rather than decisions you've made to satisfy somebody else's expectations about who you're supposed to be?

I started thinking about this because of something as simple as music. I'm a Black man who grew up listening to Marvin Gaye and the Temptations, learned to play classical flute, and discovered Kiss and Black Sabbath along the way. Apparently, even what music we're supposed to enjoy can come with somebody else's rules.

But this goes a hell of a lot deeper than music.

Growing up, I was surrounded by expectations about who I should date, who I should marry, and what love was supposed to look like. My parents told me they loved me while doing things that left me questioning what love actually meant and what I was worth.

And those definitions don't necessarily disappear when we become adults.

So when you say you want a loving relationship, whose definition of love are you using? Have you actually decided what love means to you, or are you still carrying around somebody else's version?

I'm not telling you to reject everything you've been taught or go digging through your childhood. I'm asking whether the choices you're making today reflect who you genuinely want to be.

Because the way you see yourself, the conversations you have with yourself, and the definitions you've accepted about love all lend themselves to the relationships you're living.

What happens when you've spent most of your life feeling like you don't belong, and even the things that are supposed to help you change your life don't seem to work?

I've never really felt like I fit in. Not with my family, not in school, not in the military, and not in the support groups I tried while my wife was battling cancer. For years, I wondered whether something was fundamentally wrong with me.

And that brings me to what I call The Ugly Unsaid: the uncomfortable thoughts, doubts, and experiences that don't always make it into the cleaner conversations about personal growth, manifestation, and the Law of Attraction.

What happens when you write down something you genuinely want, only to hear that voice inside asking, "Who in the fuck do you think you are to want that?" What happens when you've spent years editing your desires and behavior to satisfy other people's expectations?

I've explored the teachings of Neville Goddard, Joseph Murphy, and others. I'm not saying their approaches are wrong. I'm questioning what happens when those approaches don't seem to work for someone like me.

And ultimately, how does any of this affect our relationships? How can we define the love, kindness, patience, and partnership we want if we haven't honestly examined what those things mean to us?

Maybe the question isn't simply what we want. Maybe it's how much of ourselves we've learned to silence while trying to belong.