I've been thinking a lot about love recently. For a while in fact. So long that i drafted this blog at the beginning of February and its been sat. Contemplating
Not the chemical ponderings I usually have. Or maybe it is about chemicals. I guess I will know more when I've unpicked n examined the colour n consistency of my belly button fluff.
I have been thinking about the shapes and sizes it can be.
About the needs it meets. And how my needs interact with the other persons needs..... and what that produces.
Love requires 2 people.
It doesn't have to be reciprocated but it needs someone to experience the love.
To feel it.
Be moved by it.
Be motivated by it.
To express it.
And if they, the lover (not sexual in this case), loves another person, wonderful things can occur.
Particularly if the person who is the object of the love feels something similar.
Of course, how I experience love is not how you will experience it.
It changes.
Constantly.
How I love one friend is not how I love another.
It is not more or less.
It is not better or bigger.
It is just different.
And as such, it cannot be measured.
Nor should it be.
How can it be?
It cannot be touched, or seen, or contained.
It just is.
Sometimes it is quiet, sometimes vast.
Sometimes it arrives with its own fanfare.
Sometimes it whispers in the night n smothers you when you least expect it.
Occasionally it consumes you so much, it feels like your heart may explode through your chest wall, such is the inability to contain the feeling.
And for me, that's one of the glorious things.
It is a chemical gift.
It heals, creates, expands, enriches, motivates.
It's not rationed.
It doesn't run out, expire, or go off.
It is possible to love more than one person at once.
Love is a wonder drug.
I love lots of people.
In lots of ways.
I love some people so very much.
I hope they know how much they are cared for.
I hope they know how far I would go to help them should they need it. They could have my kidneys in a breath.
It's not even a thought process.
Hot coals, ends of the earth, last pence in bank account. I would walk across, travel to and give. All of it.
And it would be as easy as breathing.
If I love you, I am all in.
Luke warm is no good.
I will remain all in, should you start to take me for granted n neglect our relationship.
I understand that I don't come first in your life. That you have priorities. My love doesn't have conditions.
The giving of my time might, but my love doesn't.
I understand that you have many friends and love them all.
I can tell you how I need to be loved. About how I like to be loved.
But I cannot make you love me that way.
That's not to say you don't love me with every ounce of your being.
I don't doubt that.
People mistake my loyalty n love for weakness - I stay too long in relationships, with eternal optimism. Hoping that the other will recognise my needs. Hoping that I will understand the other persons needs with out effective 2-way communication.
But sometimes love isn't enough.
Effort is required.
Compassion.
Empathy.
Understanding
Compromise.
Sacrifice.
I have recently been VERY lucky.
Some might say I'm not, but I am.
I met a manshape and I found myself to be quite taken with him.
We chatted easily for hours.
There was chemistry.
A lot of.
We have spent time together.
That chemistry has remained. Grown.
So has the ability to talk to each other.
Openly.
Stupidly.
The more time I spent with him, the more time I wanted to spend with him.
Yet, this cannot become 'a thing'.
For his reasons.
And I completely understand.
And while I am so very sad, equally, he has given me one of the greatest gifts I've ever been given.
He was honest and open with me from the outset.
I dared to trust and he acknowledged my fear and treated it respectfully.
He communicated the truth.
Even the bits he knew would hurt.
He valued me enough to do this at the first available opportunity.
And for that, I will always be grateful.
As will my heart.
It won't forget.
I know what it's like to be homesick. My heart wants to go home - and be safe there.
My heart has found places where it is safe, places I can call home n absolutely be myself.
These are rare, glorious spaces inhabited by those I care deeply about. People who will wrap me up when I need it, or come chasing up/down a hillside or immerse into freezing cold water with me in the name of finding adventure.
I have spoken of loving with my heart. My heart pumps my blood.
It is a muscle.
My brain produces my chemicals (or at least tells my body to produce them).
So do we love with our hearts or heads?
I think it's possible to feel lust and feel good chemicals and mistake it for love.
To become addicted to a person and the way they make you feel.....To become submerged in that sensation is a heady high.
There is also something about words and actions, in this thing we call love.
There have been relationships, of all varieties, whereby 'love' has been offered to me as a word.
An expression.
But the actions of the 'lover' (non sexual) don't or didn't match the expression.
Some people don't have the emotional intelligence to deliver.
Some people don't have the capability.
Some people can - and simply don't want to or can't.
They speak of love (I genuinely think they do love as best they can) but their actions don't resemble love.
I was once told my mouth was writing cheques that I was incapable of delivering. And at the time, I loved the person so very deeply - yet I had unmet need which prevented me from behaving in a way that reflected my feelings.
It all gets complicated.
Too complicated.
It doesn't need to be.
Love is the easiest thing in the world, so long as we don't overthink it.
If we communicate honestly about our want and needs as well as our capabilities and limits, we won't go far wrong.
It's so glorious how love transcends all things.
It has no race, no religion, no age, no disability. It is genderless.
Love doesn't care.
But it does make the world a better place to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment