A Bit of Love
How do you love?
February is a great time to celebrate love. It’s also my birth month! This month’s posts will be about Love in one form or another. Of course, each newsletter will end with a prompt for you. Drop comments and get the chat going!
“The way you love makes me love you more.”
“Recklessly?”
“More like, recklessly deeply.”
How do you love? Do you give your heart away freely? Do you guard your feelings? Have you done both? How did each method work out for you?
Is it easy for you to fall in love? I don’t just mean with a romantic partner. How often do you find yourself in love with life? Your friends? Something you’ve just discovered?
My hope is that the answer is often. But I realize that’s not everyone’s style, nor should it be.
I don’t identify as a hopeless romantic. I’m not always looking for my One True Love in any capacity. I have many loves in many categories: whiskey and coffee. Dark chocolate and ice cream. Romance and Sci-Fi. Beaches, mountains, and cities. Hiking, scuba, spin, swimming, ice skating, & running. Dear friends who are progressive, libertarian, and conservative. I don’t feel like boxing myself into one true love is necessary. Indeed, it seems rather boring!
With romantic bonds, however, I am not polyamorous. I have been in love with two people at the same time. I’ve also been in an open relationship. Those experiences taught me a lot about myself and what I’m capable of, in admirable and surprising (shocking) ways. But they also taught me that polyamory is not for me.
I’m not a hopeless romantic, but I do love deeply and freely. Recklessly deeply, some might say. My passions can dominate my heart and my head. Starting with the Beatles, when I fall for something, I tend to go all in.
You can’t get hurt if you guard your heart, right?
Maybe. I would’t know.
It’s fair to say I’m a geek for love. (Geek: someone for whom all the details matter.)
Some things I’ve fallen in love with over the years:
The Beatles. Fitness. New York City. Being a dog mom. Writing. And, of course, people. Friends who have been there time and again. Friends who have shattered my trust when I needed it most. Lovers who have done both, often over and over before the cycle ended.
Daring to love is a life lesson. You can’t get hurt if you guard your heart, right? Maybe. I would’t know. I haven’t done the best job guarding mine, and I’m not at all sorry about it.
Falling in love is the ultimate rush. I am always willing to take another scar on my heart for the joy and lessons it brings. For the part of me that it unlocks.
Sure, there have been moments I’ve been sorry as hell. I’ve shared recently how becoming a writer “ruined my life.” There are people I’ve wished I never met—or at least that I’d walked away from well before they got to leave their mark on me. Friends who have straight up broken my heart.
And don’t get me started on dogs. That’s a whole post coming soon.
All those painful moments came with their share of delights, too. Moments of joy, laughter, and triumph. That’s the Wheel of Life, and indeed relationships can turn the full circle. So despite the dark moments of the soul that I’ve faced down, I wouldn’t undo them. Even people I’ve wished I never met, they too had their place in my life. They too brought me closer to understanding myself. I’ll keep all those moments. All of them.
Because, in the end, all of this is about how I love me.
And if you don’t love yourself, you’ll never find your happily ever after.
Over this month, I am going to focus on different types of love. There will be more insights about the loves I’ve experienced and lessons I’ve learned. There will be prompts to help you consider how you love and show up in relationships. If that’s working for you the way you’d like. Post your thoughts in the comments, please. I want this forum to be a place where we talk!
Your Turn
How do you love? Easily? Slowly? Something in between?
Well I think it's safe to say that I love THIS! Another wonderful blog, and a lesson well-taken. I think these days I'm somewhere in between. When I was younger I was definitely the hopeless romantic type and was a bit reckless with how I tried to share that, getting my heart broken many times. Because of that, I'm a bit slower to connect and more cautious now when diving into a new relationship.