Lessons I Learned from Loving
Four years ago, I made the decision to embrace everything I was feeling for a man I barely knew.
While it was completely from afar and remains so to this day, that decision changed every single thing, and that love has been the center of my healing and discovery.
Two years ago, the moment arrived when it was time to give that love a voice.
I had always been very transparent about what he'd brought to my life and journey, but I'd stopped short of speaking the central truth of my feelings ... I believed that they were simply not allowed, and believed deeply that he would be absolutely horrified.
Hear me: It wasn't simply that he may not return my feelings; the idea that he could return them in some far-off universe was not even on my radar.
It was that I believed to the depths of my heart that he would be physically ill at the thought of my loving him.
Literally. Throwing. Up.
In case you've not lived in the space of believing that about yourself - planted in you (though certainly not intentionally) by the two most powerful men in your life - let me just tell you it's excruciating.
So, carrying all of that, I wrote the most courageous email I've ever written.
I was unprepared for what happened next.
The moment I clicked Send, hands shaking, my entire foundation shifted.
I had no idea until that moment that I had spent two years walking in the world as half a person. As I censored and filtered this monumental part of me - trying desperately to make sure he never knew the truth - I was screaming at my heart that it was not allowed to exist.
The moment I clicked Send, I was suddenly fully myself in a way I had never been. I was stunned at the difference it made just speaking that truth ... And how little difference it made whether he even read it.
I had written a piece a few days earlier about the lessons I'd learned from loving him, so I sent it to him, along with something of an introduction.
“I want you to have this, even though sending it is pretty much the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my lifetime. I want you to know that while everything that has changed for me is the result of my work, and TRUST ME, I am fully aware that the man I speak of here lies somewhere between you and a creation of my imagination, I am here to tell you that these lessons I never, ever knew before were illuminated by the truly astonishing light of your being in this world.
As I was writing about whether to send this to you and what my goal would be in doing it, that beautiful Hafiz quote came to mind and tears started flowing down my face. So handy, those tears are ... They so know the right answer when we get to it.
So, here ya go ... A gift to remind you, when you’re lonely or in darkness, of the astonishing light of your own being. These lessons are stunning gifts to be able to bring someone. ”
I had no idea sending them would be the most powerful lesson of all ...
Lessons I've Learned from Loving
April 2016
Before March of 2014, I had no concept of what love was.
Truly.
My foundation and filters were so broken that I had never even seen love, much less experienced it.
This is not to say that I wasn’t loved, because I absolutely was … By many who knew what that was and loved me well, and many who didn’t. It just happened that my mother was one who didn’t. So I didn’t know what love was, and I was therefore unable to experience it even from those who did love me well.
Then one day in March of 2014, I decided to embrace everything I was feeling for a man I barely knew. It was absolutely a decision ... One that my profound feeling of unworthiness had been fighting from the moment I’d met him three months earlier.
Regardless of what could ever be or not, I knew in that moment in March that what I was feeling was not to be dismissed or suppressed or minimized or “gotten over.”
It was to be embraced and explored with every cell of my being.
I remember the moment I made that decision standing in my bedroom.
I also knew that I needed to remain in the space of not knowing what his story was and what may or may not be possible, because my heart had so very much healing and learning to do.
My deep wounds and paralyzing fears had destroyed every relationship I’d ever had, most before they even began. While I believed that there was no way this man could ever value me that way, the part of me that knows deeply and hopes against all reason and good sense also knew that if I ever do have a chance with him some far distant day, I really don’t want to fuck it up. I wouldn’t want to destroy it for myself, and I would NEVER want to shatter the most stunning heart I’ve ever encountered.
There was serious work to do healing my heart, and I knew it involved embracing this love.
I have never made a better decision in my lifetime.
While I knew I was embarking on a journey of healing and learning, I had no idea how profound it would be and how completely it would change my understanding of this world.
Here’s what I’ve learned from two years of loving this man … Completely from afar.
What it means for someone to occupy space in my mind and heart every single moment, taking nothing away from anything else.
This was completely new to me. People had always taken over my world before, making everything and everyone else disappear. Most importantly, they had always made me disappear.
What it means for someone’s presence in every single moment to lead me deeper and deeper into my own heart.
I will never, ever forget watching a black and white video of the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen, in an abandoned train car singing the truest song I’ve ever heard. I was absolutely overwhelmed with love for him and the beauty I was witnessing … And every bit as overwhelmed with the deep knowing that what I was seeing was the inside of my own heart. I kept hearing myself whisper over and over “I had no idea it was so beautiful.” It took my breath away later that day when I remembered that he had written me an email just a couple of weeks before, in which he’d said “Sometimes songs are simply mirrors.”
That love is always a choice.
Love had always been an obligation for me. Those who loved me did so because they “had” to, and I was obligated to love people who hurt me because they were “family.” For my whole life, I felt guilty for loving people I wanted to love … Those who were kind to me. I’ve discovered that the latter is love. The former is not.
That love does not hurt.
Ever.
Expectations hurt. Things we tell ourselves about our worth and value hurt. Loss hurts. But LOVE DOES NOT HURT.
Ever.
All these lessons, and so many more.
What it is to feel safe.
What it means to discover who I am … Breaking down walls and laying out everything in my heart.
That I can only break down those walls when I feel safe, with a kind, loving, judgment-free, and advice-free presence to see and hear and embrace every single thing in my heart.
That I can be that presence for myself.
That love lives inside me. It is not given to me by others … It is awakened in me by others.
That when others awaken love in me, it requires absolutely nothing of them.
That to love someone is to be unimaginably grateful for their presence in this world ... Regardless of their presence in my life.
I’ve discovered that all those things they say are true:
Love changes everything.
Love heals.
And truest of all, as he said to me over our one and only coffee:
It’s all love.