On love...

Day 32

"You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free." Thich Nhat Hanh

Life without love isn't living. I think most people can attest to that. I also think that knowing and feeling love is in many ways a subjective thing. Sometimes we think we really know it, and if the thing tied to that emotion of love leaves, we question if it was love at all.

Only each of us can answer for ourselves what love truly means to us individually, but for me, love is equal to freedom. To love, is to allow. It is to see, hear, and understand. It is to meet someone or something exactly where it is, and embrace it. It is to capture the essence of someone or something and honor it just as it is.

I can say that I've known love in so many forms - parental, familial, platonic and romantic. I have known love of animals, places, experiences, and arts. I have been adored and done some adoring. It's all wonderful. A feeling we never want to truly go away, yet life teaches us that it can step in and make us doubt the stronghold of love.

Romantic love is one that we are encouraged to fantasize and dream of from a young age. Each of us creates a story of what that means. I did not think my story would mean resetting my life and views on love in my mid-thirties with the dissolution of my marriage. With all of the emotions and heartbreak that compounded around that period of my life, I now know it was only there because there was a deeper love story to be told. Sometimes letting go and releasing is the deepest act of love we can do for another person and for ourselves. And many times, a shift is needed for us to reevaluate not just our love for others, but our love of self.

I'm grateful for all of the people I have loved so far and those who have loved me (mutually or not.) When we allow each other to just be, and cherish each other for who we are, we are acting in selflessness. Even if we choose not to "be" with that person, live in a certain place, or can no longer take part in things we loved, the essence of that experience and that feeling is always with us.

I think the only complication in love is learning to allow it to flow - receiving and releasing it as needed, but trusting that it will always come back to you. Our love stories are eternal and never in vain.

"Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, 'You owe me.' look what happens with a love like that. It lights the whole sky." Hafiz