Getting her groove back - I like Britney on top

It's hard to love someone from afar. It’s even harder when you know that person needs your love more than anything, but doesn’t realize it. I’ve learned that it’s not enough to love someone unconditionally; that person has to be able to recognize what you’re offering them, be open to receiving it, and be in an emotional place where they can allow themselves to be loved. As a bonus, it would be nice if they also appreciated you and knew you existed.

I don’t want to jinx it, but after a year in which she pushed the boundaries of eccentricity and did her best to push me away, the love of my life (and the woman I moved to Los Angeles for) may finally be ready for a committed, monogamous relationship with me. Of course, I’m talking about Miss Britney Jean Spears.

It was a tough year for all of us who love my Britney, and it was especially difficult for me. I had a hard time understanding how Adnan Ghalib, the paparazzo-turned boyfriend, made it into 2008, given the fact that he had "sleazy" written all over him from day one. So I was really happy he supposedly shopped their sex tape all over town — not because I wanted to see it, but because I wanted her to see his true colors. Now that she has, I hope I don’t see him around because there’s no guarantee I won’t slap that flavor saver right off his face for disrespecting my Britney like that.

My future mother-in-law threw me a little bit with her book.

You’d think that with one daughter in the middle of a meltdown and the other becoming a teenage single mom, she’d want less attention paid to her parenting skills, not more. But my future father-in-law stepped up and gave Britney a measure of stability in her life that allowed her to do what she loves.

And I think having him in her house running her life for this past year did the same thing for her that Thanksgiving dinner at my mother’s house always does for me: remind me why I left home in the first place.

Now she’s focused on making a home and family of her own and taking control of her career.I’ve been watching the promotional tour for her new album,"Circus," and I have to give her props for getting her back on top of her game. The industry didn’t understand her a year ago when she was shooting the video for "Piece of Me," and showed up late because she was with her sons. But after that video won Best Female Video, Best Pop Video, and Video of the Year at the VMA’s, they understand her now. I, of course, always have.

That’s why I’m a little concerned about the fact that my future father-in-law wasgranted permanent conservatorship over her affairs because if it remains uncontested,he could control her life until he dies.

That worries me because this is something the courts do for crazy people, but my Britney isn’t crazy. She went from being a 17-year-old girl to a 27-year-old woman as an international pop star and with the whole world watching. If those 10 years of any of our lives were available on YouTube, we might look crazy, too, but that doesn’t mean we’d need someone else to take care of us for the rest of our lives.

So here she is with three VMA’s, a number one song that she performed in London, Paris, and New York, lighting the trees at Rockefeller Center and L.A. Live, and a new album of good music (I challenge anyone not to dance to "Lace and Leather"); all while looking and sounding better than she ever has.Some people will say my Britney is on the comeback trail after a difficult period. I say she never left.

Her career successes aren’t as important to me as her personal life. In her documentary, "For the Record," she talks about where she is and what she wants — and that’s why I’m starting to believe she may be ready for me. "I used to be a cool chick," she said, "and I feel like the paparazzi has taken my whole cool slang away from me. Like going out and doing stuff and seeing a guy and hanging out. The way I used to live I was a pretty cool chick, you know? And I’m not really that
way any more."

She went on to say, "That would be heaven for me: to have my kids on an island, and a man, and no one could get to us." It took meeting the right man for Stella to get her groove back, all it will take is Britney meeting me to get her cool slang back.