Love and I

Published 27 June 2018

Apologies for not writing over the past month. Earlier this month I received a letter that threatened my very existence and sent me on a long reflection of how I relate to the people around me. Although that letter was instrumental in my reflection on love, such a reflection was inevitable as questions of marriage continue to increase and as my reading list this past month included two books on love (All About Love: New Visions by Bell Hooks, gifted to me by Tim Weiss; and The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate by Gary Chapman, gifted to me by Tom Kosnik). Love! What a word! What a concept! What a force! A force that has given life. A force that has taken life. A force all of us yearn for.

Now with the wisdom of study and experience I know love is an ongoing choice. We choose who receives our love and those who love us also choose to love us. How then must we decide who we love? That is a question that I continue to reflect upon. This is because I have chosen to give my love to people who in retrospect were not "deserving" of my love and affection. This is from relatives to friends to church mates. I am sure others feel the same way about me, that they have chosen to love me when I was not deserving. Bell Hooks' book gives me the tools to define love and to better assess the sentiment that some people were not deserving of my love. 

While reading All About Love, the idea of love as the choice to help another attain spiritual fulfillment stuck with me. In that way, I realize that I have been falling short of helping those I love in their journey of self-actualization. Instead I have been focusing on what others can do or give me. As such the notion that people were not deserving of my love was based on my disappointment when they did not love me the way I wanted them to. However, was I loving them the way they wanted to be loved? Loving then is not as easy as I thought it is. I now understand the idea that sometimes we have to let those we love go, if them going will help them in their self-actualization. My love for myself also means I must advance my own self-actualization, and this also means walking away from people who hold me back from that.

 So what do I say to relatives asking me when I am getting married and giving my dying mother a grandchild? I take a deep breath and smile. Will they understand my response? The letter and the books have revealed that I have further to go before I can even consider steps like marriage and children. Instead, I must work on filling the cracks in the way I love. I must learn to love people as they want to be loved. So if you are my friend, please share with me how I can love you. If how I love you presently brings you discomfort, please let me know so I may adjust my behaviors accordingly. The letter and the books have revealed to me that although I worry so much about whether I will meet my love, I have plenty of love in my life, and for that I am grateful. Even more important, I am at peace in the knowledge that all these people who love me now will not be there forever and that is okay.