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And he’s right—I do need somebody who does all those things.

Somebody who keeps promises.

Who shows me the kind of love I could build a home on.

Who has integrity. Is humble. Honest.

Well . . . I’m not jumping ahead and saying this is definitely true, but so far, James fits the description, doesn’t he?

My previous picks were every bit as bad as my mother’s short-lived one. But James has been the antithesis of those guys. He’s gone out of his way several times for me. He backed me up at the coffee shop. He’s so humble he was willing to sing ridiculously in front of a packed house of total strangers. He got me the hat. He saved me from a waterfall.

So sure, I’m a little head over heels. I think this is only fair. He’s straight out of a page of my personal fairy-tale handbook.

With Dom I mistook fear for love. Mike I loved, even while he took far more than he gave. James, though? I don’t deserve a guy like him.

Stop it. That train of thought isn’t going to help me. If there’s anyone to be like in the story I heard, it’s Dad.

Just take life one simple step at a time.

I do the only thing I can to stay productive for my mental well-being today and crack open my book. It doesn’t matter where the page lands. I’ve read through it so many times now I can nearly recite it all. I will brainwash myself into thinking and acting like a mature and capable adult. And I’m voluntarily, happily, eagerly doing so via reading, and rereading, and rereading these points.

My book falls open somewhere in the last two chapters, and I settle in my chair as I read Yelensky’s triumphant, if overly breezy, words again.

We can change our lives only when we stop waiting for permission.

Hesitation is the enemy of fulfillment.

It’s good stuff.

My mouth words the last paragraph silently and confidently as I finish the book, and then, pausing and not quite knowing what to do next, with Dad still sawing away at the wood and my need for distraction until my date with James at an all-time high, I opt for something I’ve never done before, actually.

I turn the page.

“Sneak Peek at Affirmation Therapy: Training Your Mind Through Intentional Yeses” reads the otherwise crisp blank page.

I turn the page again—not that I have annnny problem with saying yes—and find myself at the start of a new chapter 1. Let’s see what Yelensky has to say for the other half of the population with their blessed dilemma.

I’m reading while halfway mulling over whether it would be better to be addicted to acceptance or to be a stuffy old Scrooge needing rescue from a life of narcissistic behavior, when I pause. Draw my attention to the line I just lazily read. Reread it.

This time closer. Much. Closer.

Saying yes is often the simplest way to love someone well.

A direct quote.

From . . . James.

Who, apparently, was quoting . . . Yelensky.

I flip the page. Continue reading. On and on Yelensky goes, covering the opposite ground of my book but in identical format. He identifies the problem. Diagnoses the behavior. Gives a plethora of examples. Explains at the end of the chapter how, by utilizing his radical method of accepting, for a short time, everything and everyone that comes along, the reader will achieve their goal at rapid speed. The goal in this case being to become a better and more altruistic, considerate, and fun-loving person by saying yes.

Which is, as I think it over, just about exactly what James has done since the moment he met me.

The airport ride.

The dance in the snow.

The karaoke.