beautiful, naked, unabashed love

I have not written in this blog in over a year, and yet, the post I make today is not a post about me or my life - and yet it is.  One of the sweetest women I know is struggling with a broken heart.  While she was dating the man who has influenced her heart's current state I would watch in awe that their relationship was my former relationship with new faces.  I would think to myself, "this must have been how my friends felt powerlessly watching me suffer through that relationship."  I would have empathy for my friend, restraint toward her lover, and relief that it wasn't me this time.

Today, my friend has been separated from her paramour for several months and she continues to grieve the loss of the relationship.  She confided in me that she still loves him and feels sorrow.  I responded with this email...

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Oh, my sweet friend, I so deeply and truly know those feelings.  I feel like you and I have had parallel relationships with the same man in two different faces.  It can be so confusing to love someone, to truly love them, and to also have that part of you know that while they love you the best that they could love, their love isn't enough.  It's not enough for them, even if, for a small time, you think it's enough for you.  To love them truly, and also know in the depth of your heart that their love isn't enough, because they can't love, not truly, not deeply, not the way that your Love deserves to be loved.

It's a tragic feeling.  The tragedy is when you honor your love and you allow yourself to feel it.  You allow your love to feel the fear and freedom of loving, and you know in your mind that your love isn't really free, you're just taking it on a walk - it's still on a leash.  You continue to present your love, your beautiful love that is gorgeous naked, and you present your love all dolled up with lace and bows and you present it to your beloved only for him to tell you that he doesn't know what to do with it and that you should keep it safe yourself.

It's tragic when you think about all the love you've poured into the man you love and you think about how much he's grown and changed because of YOUR LOVE, and that the only way to keep your love safe is to listen to him.  To keep your love safe, yourself.  To think of all the love he's received and how beautiful it has made him to himself and to others, and how he'll know how to love now that he's been loved; but, when he's finally able to love, it will be to love someone else.

That your beautiful, naked, unabashed love - that YOUR LOVE in its shining beauty and glory - that the love you possess that makes your friends love you, your kids love you, your coworkers and bosses, your kids' teachers, strangers in line in the store, passers by on the street, that all this love inside you that everyone sees and everyone appreciates, that the love was impotent in inspiring the one person in the whole world whom you chose to love, to love you back. 

So you second guess it.  You think that the love everyone sees in you must be a facade.  You think that everyone sees something in you that they are interpreting as love, but they are all wrong, you're just good at faking it.  Because obviously, if you were good at loving, you wouldn't be alone.  You would be loving someone, and they would be loving you back.  You would be enveloped in a cocoon of love, drifting higher and higher on an upward spiral of reciprocity and love.

But, my friend, all those beautiful and wonderful things you saw in Dustin he did not see in himself.  All of those beautiful and wonderful things he saw in you, made him realize even deeper that he was absent of those traits.  The more you loved him, the more he doubted his ability to love, because he could not love in the beautiful and untethered way that you loved.  

You are on a pedestal   You are glowing and shiny.  You have love to give.  

And right now, your heart is broken.  Your heart is confused.  Your heart still loves him, and you know what, your heart ALWAYS will. Your heart is really, really good at loving.  And that's a very good thing.