The Wonder(ing) of Love

I have been called to wonder deeply over this last month about love. What is it, really? We have so many fairy tales, and beside them equal number of horror stories. What is it that draws two people together? What makes them really good together? What is it that makes their interactions, their relating to each other something that is good and healthy – something that builds and creates - rather than something that hurts and tears down?

How do we know when we have found our ‘other’ – the one that meets us truly? Not one who completes us –for no one but ourselves can do that . . . but how do we know when we have found that other that is truly our match, the one with whom (at least for now – for what, really is forever?) we, together, are more than the sum of our parts?

And when we have found it, how do we know whether the timing is right? If it hurts others, or threatens to take us away from the path we know we need to be on, is it more courageous to dive in against all odds, or to walk away, holding that love in reverence, trusting that it will come again when the timing is right?

I tasted, briefly, this month what it was to experience that match – that equal - to love and be loved with equal joy, passion and reverence. To learn and grow with and from another even as he learned and grew with and from me. I also experienced what it was to let it go, with love and reverence, and a knowing that the timing was not right. I feel a little like I’m living a romance novel, and am chagrined at that . . . .life often imitates art, but somehow the romance novel is not the art-form I think of when I hear that reference.

Truly, even as my heart aches, I am filled with gratitude and a clear awareness that I would not give back a moment. I willingly accept the pain of loss knowing in it that I am vitally alive – that is a testament to how deeply I have felt love and joy in such a short period of time. I do not know if the timing will ever be right for the two of us – and right now I cannot picture another man being with me as this beautiful man has been in this past month – but I know now what is possible. I know that such a way of being with another exists. I know that it is possible to be truly met on all levels: body, mind, spirit and heart. I know that the skeptics who say I want too much are wrong. They, like me, simply need to call on more patience and trust.

And so, even in my sadness, I know joy and hope. I choose to hold my heart open, even as it wants to contract. I choose to breathe through it and allow the feelings to move through as waves - for I dishonour the beauty of what we have shared if I close in response now, and I hold myself stuck if I contract.

I know my love to be ever-growing and expanding. For he will have a piece of my heart forever – and still there will be a full heart for me to give when the timing is right – be it to him or another. And always I know my life to be filled with love - for I am blessed to have a rich circle of friends and family, and a wonderful community - and I am filled full by all of these.

And so I know the Power of Hope . . . and that is a whole other story