Choosing to Love

Several months ago ("last year" I can say, now that it is 2015), I made a colossal error. I thought I loved someone I didn't know. As I came to know that individual, I knew that neither love nor friendship was possible. Having changed my Facebook status to "in a relationship" (a completely modern and bogus action), I had to eat crow. I spoke loudly and long about the incompatibilities one might find with patient inspection of the potential mate. More quietly, I felt the disappointment of dissolved feelings, and the resignation of things returning to normal. The lovely Irish singer/song writer Gilbert O'Sullivan said it, "Alone again (naturally)."

But I am one of those crazy people who has never accepted that alone is a natural state. Again and again I have ventured into the world of singles-who-desire-mates and searched for the one. Maybe even more crazy is the fact that I neither consider this a matter to be held privately or one to reveal with embarrassment or shame. Solitude can be lovely and enriching, but there should be no shame in saying long-term solitude is not for me.

Having given up the wrong-no, unsuitable is a better word-person, I proceeded to be astounded by the sudden appearance of the right one. Something in me recognized him, felt immediately that he was kindred. I embrace this growing love wholeheartedly, in the manner of one jumping off a cliff with the certainty that wings will grow before she hits the water below.

I once had a therapist who listened to months of my musings about unsuccessful love life and then pronounced that perhaps I just wasn't good at love. Ouch. The better therapist said "You don't have to work so hard at love. The good relationships will be easy." I am grateful for the second therapist and her wise words. She never doused my hopes. She left me with useful information that helps me recognize the validity of my current feelings.

I haven't felt moved to write in many months. Big things happened in 2014, and eventually I will bring them to this forum. Meanwhile, I have chosen to love.

Choosing to love takes love out of the realm of magic, and puts it in our lives in a very conscious, active way. I don't believe that love beats us into submission and rules our response to another human being. Rather, we choose every day, every interaction, to treat that partner in a loving manner. We open ourselves to sharing and transparency. We develop loyalty and commitment. And in the right circumstance, all this happens easily, without the feeling of being repressed, manipulated, or abused. Hallelujah.

This post was written without the intent of harming any human creatures.

Peace. Happy year.