Day 122 - randoms on love

I don't think this post is going to make a whole lot of sense. I'm all swirled up and cloudy right now but maybe if I start writing about it... it'll at least help me sleep better tonight. Here goes...

I had a portion of this Shakespearean sonnet stuck in my head tonight:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

I had a really good time catching up with a friend today. Most of what we talked about was love, loving, and being loved. There's something about love that's such a mystery... it makes people do some crazy things... in the name of love, caution is thrown to the wind... it can throw your life into such a confusing, sticky mess. I think a lot of people can relate to that. I also think... that... perhaps... that's not what love really is. Or at least it's not the kind that I want... the complicated kind.

I want the simple kind. The kind that simplifies your life... purifies it... clarifies and guides. Not the kind that drives me to insanity... but pushes me to goodness, wisdom, and reproduces that same love in response to having received it. Love should be easy. You shouldn't have to work hard for it... it should be freely given, but also never cheap or taken for granted. "whose worth is unknown, although his height be taken". Priceless love.

I want to be loved with a passion. I want to be loved so much that the lover would be willing to give up everything... for me. I want to be first... to feel precious... that no matter where I am... if I'm lost in a crowd... to know that somebody loves me and sees me. Truly SEES me... not for my face or my clothes or anything on the outside... but sees my heart and loves my heart. Someone who sees into the depths of my heart... even the ugly parts... and loves me the same. And no matter what silly, mean, or thoughtless things I say or do... that the love is still there... burning ever brighter and clearer for me and only me...despite how undeserving I am of such a precious gift.

I read something interesting the other day:

As a human being, your experience of joy is linked to your experience of sorrow. For example, in connecting with the pain of a divorce, you can also reconnect with the love that defined the relationship before the separation. -Marilyn Smith-Stoner, RN, MSN

For me... I can totally see how that was true in my life...and in Anderson's. Our joys were heightened beyond measure, because we also experienced sorrow beyond measure. Continually since we were engaged, back in June of 2008... immeasurable sorrows and devastation paved the way for equally powerful joy and happiness. Heard the saying that you don't know what you've got until it's gone? How bout tweaking it so that you appreciate what you have right now because tomorrow it might be gone...? I know what I had with Anderson. I appreciated what I had every single day I had it. He was my prince charming... we didn't live happily ever after (together)... but we did live happily... until death did us part.

So, this kind of love does exist. It's been written about. It's been sung about. Some of you may feel as though you've been searching your whole life for this kind of perfect love... and have found that it has eluded you... and maybe have given up and resigned because searching for this kind of love in this ugly world seems so futile. Disappointment after disappointment yielding to the depressing realization that love only happens to other people or only in chick flicks or fairy tales... but never for me. I've felt this way. Remembering that I've felt this way makes me appreciate the love I have all the more.

I still miss him. Man, do I miss him. Lately, I've just been missing my best friend. I miss just talking to him everyday about my day. I miss being able to tell him everything... little or big... I miss his sayings and his short but powerful tidbits of wisdom that he would speak into my life. I miss him pulling me back, making me slow down... keeping me from saying or doing things that would hurt other people. I miss him. I miss laughing with him, I miss dancing with him, I miss who I was when I was with him... completely free, completely understood, completely loved.

I've had a hard week. It was overall a happy week. But it was hard. I can blame the influx of hormones that come and go on a monthly basis, but it is not completely to blame. Ups and downs, stops and go's, mess ups, pull backs, and course corrections. My own human weakness.

In my moments of weakness... I looked around for encouragement... I looked for love in a lot of the wrong places and was consistently disappointed. I should have started out from the get go and went directly to the source of the most perfect, the most undefiled, the most sacrificial and unconditional love that I knew... and had I done that, I would have saved myself a lot of heartache and grief. I confess in my human weakness, I had my eyes set on things in the world... but God is gracious and He consistently reminds me, despite how many times I mess up, that He loves me, He seeks me out, He puts little love letters along my path for me to find and smile about... and He tells me... and shows me the amazing wonders of His love over and over and over again.

³⁸ And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. ³⁹ No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39

Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Scrolling up, I don't think any of this made sense at all. It's just a collection of thoughts that I had floating around in my head today. I'm still processing what's happened to me the past few days... lots and lots of good things... surprising things... things that caught me off guard... realizations... good chats... so many many good things. I'm tired. Going to sleep. Maybe I'll have more clarity tomorrow.