I attempt to write today an article on the topic of love. I say attempt as this not only allows me to be wrong, it also allows me the freedom to express something that I’m no expert in, yet I’m in love with the idea of love, what it is and how it feels. This will only be my personal idea of it, from my experience and what I can articulate clearly enough to share.
Not so long ago, in a place far far away, I met a woman who changed my idea of what love was and what I was really looking for. It’s no understatement to suggest this was one of those life changing moments and one that I will forever be incredibly thankful for. Before this encounter I had been ‘looking’ for a partner to share my life with, to love and open my world to. Like most of us, I guess, the idea of this was one that played and occupied my mind in every day life.
Girlfriends came and went and with each one I asked myself the same questions, can I love this person, is she the one and is it the deep, quality love that I had imagined? The confusion we must put ourselves through asking these questions is consuming of energy and thoughts. To be fair it’s also somewhat paralyzing to a relationship and our standing in this world as confusion does not create an effective space to live in. Like a hamster in a wheel I went around in circles year after year.
Until one day, out of the blue I encountered something special, a woman, and she was specifically that in my eyes. A feminine being who represented somehow my concept of what Mother Nature is. A softness came from her, a knowing that she owned being a woman, a sense that became so clear and obvious to me was that around her I felt incredibly safe and powerful. She didn’t need to fix me, she didn’t need to even say a word at all, in fact a touch or a look would allow me to sit deep in myself and breath knowing that I was a powerful man who was going to be just fine in this world.
There was a comfortable feeling of love that I had not felt before, one that she wasn’t giving to me, more she was allowing me to feel though my own beautiful feeling of self love. The feeling was so divinely intoxicating I could not do it justice by describing it with clumsy written language. Perhaps in short, she had helped break my heart into light and from this day onwards my life would look and feel differently.
Although the meeting between us was brief, the effect was permanent. That feeling that she had opened up in me was something I had realized, to me, was love. The best love possible, I didn’t need anyone else to give it to me, I was already whole as long as I focused on loving myself in this way with this energy. Holding onto this feeling I started to feel differently, my words and thoughts became softer and in some ways my writing became far more emotional and poetic.
By a chance encounter I had discovered my sort of love. Not by finding a life partner, instead by someone showing me how it was I wanted to feel that resonated with me. It wasn’t a woman’s physical appearance, what she did for a job or even her personality…instead it was simply how she allowed me to feel. I deliberately use the word ‘allowed’ as there was no ‘making’ me feel this way, I was the one whom made myself feel this way. She had a gift and it made sense that she also taught these things around the world and I was lucky enough to be an individual student.
Now, here is where it got really exciting. This new sense of feeling, this love I felt for myself attracted a whole new type of person to me. Almost mirrors of the love that I was feeling was the feeling new people would have that appeared in my life. Both women and men started entering into my space who resonated with me, an attraction of matching vibrations perhaps. What was different was that these people were beautiful souls, nothing to fix, nothing to hide, were vulnerable, soft and people who felt like they really were my tribe. I could feel them and was able to accept their love as much as I gave. When I left their presence, be it as a friend or lover my energy was still full, in fact it felt like I had even more.
I had discovered that the more beautiful my heart was, the louder it was for those to hear. If all this wasn’t enough, I have found that I no longer prefer my own company. That may sound strange to some, others will understand, however, what I can express is that it appears now with this love in my ‘heart’, I can be with others and reap rewards that I have always thought possible, yet not until now, felt. As much as I can enjoy the journey of solitude and what it does to for my sense of self, now, like some form of magic, I can feel more powerful, energized and whole when with others whom I care about.
This for me, is what love is, after so many years of searching and waiting I had found it in a chance encounter by a single soul who managed to walk in and walk back out again and hand me the greatest gift so far in my life. Even thinking about it creates emotion and I look upwards and feel how lucky I am. Love is not a thing, it’s not something someone else can give you, it’s something that someone can only give you the space, to almost hold the space, to allow yourself to feel this. No one can complete you, for me we can only complete ourselves. To say that someone can complete you would mean that if they left, you would not be whole again. Is that where some of us go wrong in a relationship I wonder in a rhetorical sort of way.
I understand this may sound clumsy and awkward, articulating such a thing is not so easy for a writer such as myself, perhaps due to it being so intensely personal and open to debate topic. In my own way, I hope that I’ve done it justice.
