A post about love

About a year ago (I can't be certain on the date) I told a man I loved him. I believe it was during a phone conversation late at night– and it was at least a week or two before he returned the sentiment. I have continued to grow in love for this man over the past year, and loving him has meant different things over that time. Sometimes it means different things every few hours.

At first, and many times still, loving Matt was an affirmation of all I find within him that is a reflection of the divine – of his grace, his patience, his creativity, his love and care for others, his questioning and curiosity, his child-likeness. It is an interesting conundrum that loving Matt is a response to noticing how the God he doesn't believe in is expressed through him in the world.

Loving Matt was also, and can also still be, be an inescapable realization of the relationship we have created, or allowed to take place, between us. An actualization of the chemistry, of the butterflies and heart pounds. A direct result of the flirtatious text messages and cultural expectations for relationships. Saying I love you feels very much some times like being swept up in the thunder of a waterfall. Of being pulled along by the narrative of infatuation or affection that defines love in our culture. A realization of my natural inclination to follow a path to its conclusion, to fall into love “hook line and sinker”, as we say.

And there are times, more than I can count, that loving Matt is a response to the amazing way he makes me feel - to the comfort and stability he provides me, to the way he makes me smile and laugh, to the beauty and wonder he finds in the world around us. In these moments saying “I love you” seems to be the overflow of the well of joy inside of me - that there is no way I can possibly contain all the wonderfulness his existence adds to my life, and loving him is necessary expression of that abundance. That loving Matt is an echo of being loved by him.

Then there are the moments when loving Matt is a choice. When saying “I love you” is a reminder of the commitment we are continually making to each other. About how even when he drives me crazy and distance is painful and questions about our future keep me up at night and almost make me mad, that this relationship is worth the effort. That this is not simply an experiment in “falling in love,” but that loving takes effort and energy, courage and compassion.

Loving Matt, especially loving him long distance, has been a lesson in learning that to truly love each other we must both be willing to grow, to sacrifice what needs to be sacrificed, but also to keep our heads and our identities – to not lose ourselves to the torrent of love that can consume as well as create. To balance our individual narratives with our collective story, to care about ourselves as much as we care about each other. I am very much still learning this lesson.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Reflection on Mothering

The second Sunday of May. May 13, 2012. International Mothers Day. My planner tells me it is celebrated in USA, CAN, AUS, NZL. Very international. (note the sarcasm).  I have noticed mother's day come and go several times. I pride myself on never forgetting the culturally mandatory, and always rewarding, phone call to my mother, even when she is across the globe. Often I call my grandmother and single aunt as well - they too have been mothers in my life.  This year, however, I was struck by how Mother's Day, with it's focus on gift giving and flowers designed both to empower the economy and praise feminine domesticity, losses sight of the character of mothering.  I celebrated Mother's Day with "The House of Peace," a church community run through Fourth Street Community Fellowship (Virginia Mennonite Conference) for the impoverished and homeless of inner city Washington, D.C. In honor of thee occasion, Rev. Sang Jin Choi asked members to share test...
Read more

change

read this : http://www.thesimpleway.org/resources/details/50-ways-to-become-the-answer-to-our-prayers/. I did. And while I knew it was a call to change, I kept checking off all the things I already do. I hate that somehow, in my mind, the few things on that list I have done or do, like laughing at advertisements or writing someone in prison, seem to justify my fears of actually sacrificing something to make a difference. Here, at this point in my life, when I have all the time in the world, I read that list and check off the things I did at school without thinking of the things I could do here and now, in my lonely existence. I know full well that my sadness and my loneliness have to do with having nothing to be passionate at the moment, having nothing to keep me in love with the world. And yet, I don't know how I can adapt the list of simple, radical living, to inspire me today to make a difference. I'm not sure how I can be the answer to prayers in this place while I continue...
Read more

hippie me

I made a decision the other day. A friend of mine encouraged me to be proud of how I spend my time this summer, to plan things to look forward to, and in many ways to enjoy life. For awhile now I've waited on God to change this summer, and somehow I've forgotten that I have hands, feet, a heart, and a brain to change it too. And so I set out to make a list, a list that will bring joy, encouragement, and excitement to me as well as others. In many ways it's a simple list, consisting of smiling, leaving random notes of encouragement, and caring a trash bag around town to pick up the worlds litter. However, this list is helping me to find the passion for life that I felt I might have left at school in Virginia. Being so far from the God-loving, hippie culture of the past year is forcing me to come to terms with how I can love God's world and Her people in my own way. And this time, doing things like not-washing my hair, washing my clothes by hand, and building calluses on ...
Read more