Tamara Like Camera

Dearly beloved, I have gathered you here today to talk about LOVE. Staring up into that abyss.

“Now the reason we’re here
As man and woman
Is to love each other
Take care of each other
When love walks in the room
Everybody stand up
Oh it’s good, good, good
Like Brigitte Bardot”

And the funny thing is, I’m just not feeling it.

I’m not necessarily saying I’m not feeling love, but I’m not feeling THE love, if that makes sense. The thing is, I’m really tactful on this here blog, and in real life too. One thing I’m good at – and I’m not good at saying things I’m good at so this is a treasure – is finding a balance and grace with words. Love, though. The most wondrous thing and an infectious disease. I have lived so much life in my years. I know what it’s like to love someone who is emotionally and/or physically unavailable. And I know, even more than that, what it’s like to be emotionally and/or physically unavailable. So when this prompt about lessons came up, I got rather excited. And wrote it.

I was on fire! At first.

And today, I had to rewrite it. I’m in a weird headspace and I’ve been riding the struggle bus this week. Maybe the struggle train. It’s like the Hogwarts Express, with its Dementors and cobwebs. There are issues this week, with loved ones’ health, and work, and my stupid brain. I tend to lead towards the dramatic/catastrophe, so if I’m not feeling the love, it’s like, I never will. If work sucks, it always will. And if people aren’t healthy, they’ll get worse. And I know it’s illogical and my therapist helped me through it with fun distorted thoughts worksheets and charts. Oh, happy day. Except, she retired and I’ve been really amazing at not letting my brain go down those roads since then, but this week is a struggle. Maybe it’s best to write about love right now.

At its most raw and real. Wondrous and disappointing.

Love is a nearly unscalable glacier. The thing is, I have scaled a glacier before. I had a lot of help. I had a guide and all the right equipment and the perfect glacier-walking shoes and a rope. Still, I fell and bruised my legs from top to bottom. I said, “I am never going to make it up there.” Until I did. One foot in front of the other. One icy hand and one nearly icy heart in front of the other. Somewhere then, and somewhere now, parts of me were/are pulsing red and hot and alive. Underneath the ice and against the nearly unscalable wall. We all know that ice melts and what’s underneath has nowhere to hide. Red and hot and pulsing, and a little numb, but alive.

“Now look at the people
In the streets, in the bars
We are all of us in the gutter
But some of us are looking at the stars
Look round the room
Life is unkind
We fall but we keep gettin’ up
Over and over and over and over and over and over”

Every day, I work hard and I fight hard, probably more than the average person. I have to fight against and through a murky and thick anxiety. It thins and thickens, and I negotiate it against that of which isn’t contained in its murky depths. Real life. Real love. Politics and sickness and glaciers melting. Every day, I work hard and I fight hard, for confidence and compassion, love and understanding, evenness and openness, and a red hot pulsing core. And when things don’t go my way, because they won’t always go my way, I feel the injustice of it. I can embrace it too – the layers and complexities. The nearly unscalable walls with their pathways and clutch holds.

The fire within me – it slow burns; it fast burns. I worry when I can’t feel its heat – which is an unbearably inconvenient and shockingly hopeless feeling. I spin that fire whenever I can.

So I carve out new paths with new steps. My glacier-walking shoes are big and clumsy, rather than outgrown and suffocating. The fire within the ice is in the words and the appeals, the peace and the patience, in the way to love and be loved, and the ways they meet in the middle.

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“Me and you, every night, every day
We’ll be together always this way
Your eyes are blue like the heavens above
Talk to me darlin’ with a message of love”

I started this original post to talk about lessons of love, so here I go!

Message of Love:

• I’ve learned that true love is a fact, and true love is a choice – to nurture it, to stay in it (or not), to water it, and to watch it grow.

• I’ve learned that we all speak different love languages and accents and dialects, and the translations criss-cross quite a bit. Sometimes it takes eons to figure out. Sometimes, we can never find ways to communicate in our different love languages.

• I’m still learning my love language and every time I take the quiz, I get a different answer. I’m certainly a “Words of Affirmation” person, I’m a “Quality Time” person, definitely a “Physical Touch” person, and less about gifts and services.

• Two weeks ago I had a night out with my in-laws – dinner (my treat) and a VERY interesting play (their treat). We wound up on the subject of love. I mentioned that I have said I was in love many times in my life, but I wasn’t sure I really was for most of them. My father-in-law asked, “Well. Did you feel that it was real at the time?” I love that I’m always learning more.

• I’ve learned that you fall in love, even platonically. It can be a similar process – the smiling, the aching, the missing, the concern. It’s really strong when it happens with friends. I’m smiling at a few of them here in this famous photo:

• I’ve learned that time and therapy really do help you through heartbreak and grief, and for me, better than anything else, really.

• Maybe they all WERE love, real when they happened, so real locked in time. They were different forms of love with different mysteries and languages and accents and depths. Innocent love. First love. Physical love. Obsessive love. Infatuation. Adoration. Empty love. Consummate love. (I Googled most of these and I’m not copping to having felt all of them!)

• I like to think of the best kind of love as peanut butter dipped in chocolate, and cake dipped in frosting. Vice versa and back again. I like to call it true, unconditional love. Every person paired with every other person on earth = a different type of love.

• True, unconditional love, though. The one with the passion. Excitement AND comfort. Science and psychology and a splash or heap of magic. This is the one where you’d do anything for them. This is the one that many will never experience in their lifetime. Every face across every crowded room. Even once is a large amount of this love.

“Now the reason we’re here
Every man, every woman
Is to help each other
Stand by each other
When love walks in the room
Everybody stand up
Oh it’s good, good good
Say i love you, i love you, i love you, i love you, i love you, i love you”

• Real love is better than in the movies. It’s better because it’s real – achy and awkward and curvy in all the right places. Miraculous, is what it is.

• I’ve learned that the best way to be ready for love is the ability to be ready to be alone.

• And I’ve learned you’re never safe. There is no true peace. And still, we live boldly and strongly, day after day. You love and you love more. You can’t fight it, hide from it, or deny it. One foot in front of the other, one heartstring after another, warm and open and bold.

“Talk to me darlin’ (with a message of love)”

I’m linking up with Finish The Sentence Friday (FTSF) for a challenging prompt. This week’s topic is “The lesson that changed how I thought..” There’s time to write yours! Link up HERE.