Living with love

My friends, as I've promised, I am back and here to write some more!

I apologize that it has been so long since I have written. Some seriously serious stuff has been present in my life, but for which I am not unthankful. Instead, I see these elements and their presence in my life as tools helping me to see again what it is that I live for, what I desire in life, and simply how pure love can be.

This is where my thoughts are today, around love. I'm not talking love as in I'm madly in love with this guy and he's all I can think about... No, I'm talking pure and simple love. The love you give only to someone who deeply knows and is invested in the simple enhancement of your worth.

If you think about anyone who has ever truly been invested in who you are as a person, wanting to enhance who you are, let you be who you are, and learn every edge of what it means to be you, chances are very good that you are smiling with the sense and understanding of what real love is. What is sad, is it seems to be remarkably difficult to find someone who desires to allow you to be you and fully accepts every aspect of who that is. At times, its completely and utterly difficult to realize that this is seemingly so hard to come by-- particularly if you're finding yourself realizing that perhaps you don't have one of those people in your life right now. I know most of us have been in that boat...and it's not a pleasant one.

But I also have to say that the difficult is also what makes it so pure and simplistically awe-striking. The not having it forces you to become invested in yourself. It forces you to see who you are and to deal with the questions of why you are the way you are and whether or not it matters the way others may or may not perceive or understand you. It forces you to first love yourself. Or, perhaps it does the opposite. Currently researching mental health for an internship, I know all to well (via research and other outside experience) that it is quite easy to not believe in yourself or your worth. But again it comes back to love.

There is that day that you realize the unconditional love and true desire to know and be with you, all of you, every aspect of you, is present in such a way you never truly knew was possible. All of a sudden the world turns the other way and you feel emotion and security in a way you haven't before, at least not quite like this. Its why we love dating so much-- the other person is so truly curious and excited to meet and see and discover just who you are. And, further, they're loving every second of it. And there you are, presumably, enjoying every micro-moment of the discovery of who they are. There is a truly blissful desire in gaining who the other person is while opening yourself to allow them to see the real you. All of you. But again, I am not rooting this love in the aspects of our life we call dating, courtship, or even marriage. They are present so many other places. And yet these are the places that we see love the least.

There is something truly special and, I'd like to venture to say rare, about an intimate love without the elements of sex. Holding someone's hand without any further intent than to simply be close to that person. Showing affection and love with only the pursuit to share how much you care and enjoy their presence. Nothing more. Relational love can be like this too, or so I assume, but there is something different when it's simply two closest of friends.

What I ask, is how have we become a culture where showing the care and the love that we have for our friends is something to be ashamed of or to be hidden. Why do we hold back? There is fear of pain, I understand this deeply, but I still question what else holds us back. Pain is enough, I believe this, but there is more that goes into the pain. There is a built up leading to the pain. There are social ramifications which leads to the pain and, sometimes, is the pain all together. What has happened to the purity of our world? What has happened to the childlike nature to simply love and enjoy and be who it is we want to be, whatever that might be at any given moment. I work to live as if these elements have not left us. It's an upward battle, but why not love? Anyone who knows me, deeply knows me on the most surface level of being able to deeply know, can see and understand that I try to do as much as I possibly can through love. Not a sexual, I want to get in your pants kind of love, but a pure and simply investment and care for who you are. A desire to give you what you need to love and live life in a way that makes you feel amazingly wonderful.

Hold on to your love. Share your love. Live through love.