A Thought about the Start of Real Love
A love story doesn’t have to end with love. Doesn’t have to start with it either.
What it needs to have is a need for love.
So often we confuse love for infatuation. For codependence. For obsession. For self-fulfillment. For self-forgetting. For excitement. For romance.
This love story needs one thing before it even finds love.
It’s not affection. It’s not validation. It’s not feelings. It’s not affirmation. It’s not even confirmation.
It needs safety. It needs comfort. It needs refuge.
It needs to know that you don’t need anything from me. It needs to know that I’m not taking anything from you.
It needs to know that my sacredness is respected and cherished so much that it will never be violated. It needs to know that your sacredness is respected and cherished so much that it will never be violated.
Real love gives, trusting that somehow receiving will come but not worrying about when. Real love is almost impossible without believing in the impossible.
This is the mystery of love. This is why so many get it so wrong.
A love story isn’t about you. A love story is about us, and then about you, and then about me.
A love story isn’t about me. It isn’t about what I gain. It isn’t about what I get. It isn’t about what I gather.
It is about what we can do better together than what we can do apart. It is about two becoming one while also remaining two.
It is embracing the paradox of a life focused on others which gives life back to us.
You are over there. You are so lovely.
I am over here. I am so lovely.
This, my friends, is love.