To Love or Not to Love

Sometimes the planets line up and you meet someone that just blows you out of the water.

Every other human you know just pales in comparison…

There’s just something about them, you know?
They have this special ingredient.

If the relationship doesn’t work out, one can shut down.
They can think, “Wow, that combination of personalities, it was like brown sugar and cinnamon, just perfect, and now that one is out of the picture, there won’t be any more heavenly aroma around here. Just this one ingredient all by itself, and what good is it when it is all alone?
It needs to be added to something,
but to what?”

Losing the one person you thought you would love in sickness and in health until death do you part, can devastate.
It can suck the life right out of a soul.

So what does one do?

Is that how hermits came to be?

They lost their true love and went into a cave or something because they just didn’t want to be around anyone ever again?

It sounds preposterous, yet we do it.
We run away – internally – if something hurts badly enough.

We walk among humanity, but inside we are closed off, in a cave, far away from civilization.

We are polite.

We engage in conversation.

But no one really gets in, anymore.
Everyone has to stand outside.

It is natural when a person is healing.
One needs the time to recover.
But to stay that way???
That is no way to live.

I met someone – and we hit it off in a pretty neat way.

His situation is imperfect but it is also his own so I will not write about it.

My situation is imperfect, too.

I am in a neck brace with one bone healed and one bone broken.
My collar bone is still broken in half, one end looking like the stairs of a fire escape, diagonal and downward.
I am still traumatized from the accident so my eyes leak this salty water whenever a tender topic is brought up in conversation – and that is a distraction.
It’s annoying.
Being a saltwater-leaker.

I kind of want to hand parkas and galoshes to everyone who hangs around me.
“Sorry everyone, we have a leak. Use these to protect your clothing…”

What do I do?
How do I proceed?

I think about how I loved someone so powerfully before.

With all of me.

Every cell, every bone, all the marrow in the bones…
Every heartbeat was for them, every evening and every morning did not transpire without their name on my lips, without their face or the sound of their voice in my imagination, and the way they looked when they laughed…

So beautiful – his laugh.
Head tossed back, forearm on tummy, laughter tumbling out into the air and carried by sound waves that must have really been fairies that sprinkled it all into my ears then into my heart with no other end but to delight me.

The stars in the sky had nothing on those eyes sparkling with mirth.

I haven’t even written about his other-centered focus in regards to successful living.

Always giving.  Always looking for a need to meet, and then doing what he could to make it happen.

But he is gone.
Cinnamon and Brown sugar are now far apart.

My role now is to determine whether or not I will allow my heart to open,
To evaluate myself honestly and see if I can invest that much again.

Each of us deserves to be adored by someone,
I want it – and the person I met wants it.
I need to know if I can provide it.

Human beings can be selfish.
Some of us won’t give unless we receive a return on our investment,
There are different rules to the Love game.

 

In love – we invest in others, withOUT the guarantee of a return
Knowing that the act of loving in itself is for others.
Yes – it hurts at times.
But even after the hurt – if we handle the pain properly – we come away from that experience more equipped to love the next person – as well as those persons who never leave us.

So my decision – it isn’t based on what I want to get.

For it to be pure and perfect, my decision must be based on what I want to give.
I would like to give someone the things they deserve – all the best parts of me.

Is there anything else?
Yes.
I can give a day.
The day that I am living right now.
And today…
I chose the kindness, the giving, the listening and attempts to comprehend…
I chose humility when they schooled me, (on politics and history).
I chose the good words, not the mean ones,
The hug instead of the handshake,
The kiss goodbye instead of the wave from my front porch.
And the truth.My neck is in a brace, but so is my heart.
I want the guarantees,
but know better than to ask for them.

To love or not to love.

Pain or no pain,
Happily ever after,
or happily never after,
We only have today
to love or not to love.

God chose love.
He chose to love us when we could give him nothing.
So I hope he helps me as I decide to try.
I hope I always try,
To love, that is.

 

I hope you always choose love, too.

– leah