Hiya. Are you angry with me? Bit of a cliffhanger? I know, I know. It’s the truth though. We get love wrong a lot. And then sometimes, we get it right and it’s not right. Oh geez, that’s stressful, huh? Yes. But also, not. That’s what this whole journey is all about. We need to dig into all the shit that mystifies and scares us if we are ever going to get to the good part. The peaceful part. The achievement of goals part. The loving ourselves part.
I could talk about love for days and weeks and months and years. Love comes in so many shapes and sizes and forms. Love shapes us, changes us, angers us, inspires us. Its absence does the same and it’s infinitely unique in that way. The appearance of love can have a like or similar impact as its nonexistence. Given the magnitude of this topic, it makes sense to pick a small tidbit to focus on. And I have, haven’t I? How do we know love? I started down that path yesterday, encouraged by a small but very intuitive human. Great. So that’s like a day, right? Nope. Not even close. Again, there is so much to wrap one’s arms around here, so let’s lay out the basics that I want to address. For now.
Today I want to delve into how we can separate love out from the other emotions we feel at any given moment. Tomorrow I want to talk about how we can make a commitment to reexamining that conclusion to make sure we continue to get it right. Thursday I’d like to talk about why equity is important in these revelations. Friday, or end of the week happy day, I’d like to conclude by describing how I believe we know how another human feels, truly feels.
Okay. How do we isolate love to understand our true feelings? And why? Well, we can only know how another feels (more on this later) if we know how we feel. If we are uncertain, then we will be unsure when it comes to other humans. We will misunderstand, misinterpret, or project. We will cause ourselves and likely others, pain. We cannot give love or receive love unless we know love.
Now I’m going to share something that is arguably going to piss you off. My apologies, in advance. I cannot tell you what love is because love is different for every single human. Despite our bullshit societal standards, the Hallmark channel, and all the crap on social media, there is no one-size-fits-all situation where love is concerned. That doesn’t mean that you should twist something deeply unsatisfying into love. It means that love is personal. Custom-tailored. Unique. Private.
My mom used to put notes into my lunch box. To this day, she sends me mail. Articles. Silly cards. Quotes. This is love. For me. I knew love when I unfurled a piece of personalized stationary buried beneath rice cakes and a juice box to read the words “Have a good day. Love, Mom.” Those six words said so much more to me. They told me to be careful. To guard my heart. To work hard. To be passionate. To open myself to people. To think. To feel. Those six words filled my heart to the brink.
My father sends me pictures from his walks. Flowers. Bugs. Plants. Sunsets. Water scenes. Sometimes they are totally magical and sometimes they are somewhat ordinary. They are always radiating love. They tell me that I’m being thought about. They remind me that there’s a world outside of working in my teeny apartment. They remind me that there’s sunshine and when there isn’t, there’s still color and life. They remind me to be grateful for all the things I have and not dwell on what I don’t. Those photographs fill my heart to the brink.
My sister fills my text inbox with ridiculous memes. Steve Carrell nodding his head, a baby falling asleep, a cheerleader toppling a beautifully executed pyramid. These images are not accompanied by words. She doesn’t explain, expand, or describe. She knows that as different as we are, there is a part of us that is intrinsically linked. There is a part of our personalities that connect. That unresolved, mysterious part of each of us that can’t be pointed to or fully understood. We are sisters. We get it. We have private jokes and share similar senses of humor and frustrations with the world. These images tell me that she wants to share a part of her day. She wants to give me a giggle. She wants to retain a connection, even when it is difficult to do so. Her messages remind me of our childhood, of a built in best friend, of the need to laugh. These messages fill my heart to the brink.
I can go on, because I have other scraps of profound love in my life, but this love is right on top. Easily accessible. Easily described. Someone might find mail annoying and old-fashioned (I’ll refrain from a perfectly cued political joke), might be grossed out by a colorful and fuzzy caterpillar, or might tire of scrolling through page after page of gifs. Not me. And if I feel any such negativity ever (which I really don’t) I am more overwhelmed by the joy and kindness. I am overtaken by love. This is what love means to me. Part of it anyway.
Okay, so how do you take this and apply it to you? Well, you have to strip out everything else. You have to take away judgments and expectations and thoughts of what the world expects or has taught you to expect. Does a flower delivery feel like love to you because it is or because you have been conditioned to understand that flower purchases are the purest representation of romance? Furthermore, is romance love? Ahh, sorry friends. It isn’t. Not even a little teeny bit. Is sex, love? Not for me. It can be. But again, the two concepts are not mutually inclusive. Is attention, love? No fucking way. Attention is just attention. Is friendship, love? Sometimes. Sometimes not. But maybe that sometimes is an always for you. The way to get to the root of it is to explore. Ask questions. Challenge yourself. Challenge what your preconceived notions might be. Love is not what television tells you it is, or social media, or a friend, or your partner. Love is what YOU feel. Love is what fills you up. Having someone is not love. Feeling enveloped by someone is not love. Love is love.
So before you tell someone you love them again, maybe ask yourself if you really do. Ask yourself what that means to you. Ask if you are saying it out of obligation or if you really mean it. Would you say that you love them if you didn’t hear it back? Just saying…
Catch ya on the flip side.
L.
thepathtoworthy.com 