“Be sure before you dive in.”
“Proceed with caution.”
“Guard your heart.”
To what end? To what purpose? For what gain?
What is the problem of loving someone with your whole heart — with diving in and embracing the fullness and depth of the emotions and the desires he stirs in your soul?
“What if you get hurt? What if he breaks your heart?”
Chances are high that both of those things will be an eventual reality of any relationship — no matter the amount of care and caution that is utilized. By its nature, love is a risk. Pain and love are opposite sides of the same coin. It is not a matter of if you will hurt and be hurt by the ones you love, but rather when and perhaps most importantly — what will you do with it? Will you work together to reconcile the pain and address the source? Will you fall apart and let time and distance become the enemy and source of the destruction of the sacred space love built? Or will you let the pain teach and inform how to love the other well or perhaps how to let them love you?
We are not perfect and love — whether given or received — does not suddenly rub those imperfections away. I will want things my love cannot give — I will want to give things my love can’t receive. We will be misunderstood and battered by the chaos that comes from two souls forging connection and meaning with one another. Much pain comes when I am confronted with my own selfishness. In spite of my best efforts, I fail to love well more often than my partner deserves. I also face the unhealed wounds that damaged lovers have dealt to my heart. My love is tainted — a reflection of the brokenness found in the remnants of relationships still carried in the recesses of my heart. Once recognized, those wounded spaces in my own soul can be soothed. I freely embrace my partner from a place of wholeness when I am willing to sort through the tattered parts that love brings to light. All of this takes work and perhaps more importantly, a willingness to engage in it. Expecting to escape hurt and pain when building anything real is foolhardy.
I do not know how to half love someone. Pain does not frighten me. What is the value of pretending that you feel less than you do? What could be the consequence of expressing the real you in those moments? How does shrinking from what is real create anything authentic? I would rather love fully and risk the possibility of pain and loss than to live knowing that I had withheld the love I had to give to another. Fear is a relentless mistress — taking things that are not hers. What if all of the walls that are built to keep pain out, also keep real love and genuine connection out of reach, too? The pain of that thought — the loss of genuine connection and the ability to be authentic — is enough to make it an easy choice for me.
I would rather take the risk and hold something real — feeling the fire of authenticity for a moment and risking being destroyed by it — than to keep my heart hidden safely away and never know the joy the fire brings. I choose to love fully — I choose to love boldly — I choose to love with all of me — I choose the possible pain it could bring in exchange for the opportunity to forge something real and the chance to be my authentic self with all the vulnerability that entails.
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Previously Published on medium
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