Re-sharing today this Free Write that began with the prompt love – and applies to today’s #LoveBlog challenge prompt, vulnerability.
Free-writes are by nature personal and rambling.
Also, because my laptop is having issues, we’re going Avant Garde with punctuation. The question mark will be signified with /.
Enter at your own risk.
Of the 468 blogs currently on my website, the search term “love” brings up 233 results. Of those, 12 “headlines” include love in the title. So, yeah, I’ve been known to talk about love.
To start with, there’s “WHAT ONE YOUNG MAN WITH DOWN SYNDROME WANTS YOU TO UNDERSTAND.” The story of how Marcus helped me through a tough conversation way back in 2014. Before he gave speeches, before we had book tours, #Truth. #TheAnswerIsLove
Parceling Love
At this moment, however, I’m feeling especially self-conscious on this whole love subject because I’ve become protective of giving love. Does that work/ Can you be protective of love/ Save love by parceling it, like money or energy/
Is love bottomless or does it have a limit
I don’t know. I used to think the capacity for love was endless, but now…there are people, situations, and experiences that charge me and some that drain me, and that ties in with the amount and honesty of the love I have within me to reflect.
Maybe partially because my love language is “acts of service,” how I feel loved, and often how I express love. and there’s only so much time and energy for service. Also, in part, because of my own social anxieties and the awkward introvert balancing act of exertion vs. fuel. Since I am also a “fixer,” I’m in a crisis of conscience there too, since I’ve recently been faced with more things, terrible word, too generic I know, but things – stuff – that I cannot fix. So I’ve been experiencing all the more helpless, hopeless, hapless reactions that troll on love.
**Important note** I’ve been socially harder to reach for almost a year now. (Feels like only a week or month, but truthfully…)
This is not a reflection on my friends, who are all awesome, but on my other life circumstances and this retaining wall that’s built up around my heart at the moment.
Not to mention the media and cultural atmosphere of hate promotion these days, it makes love feel like a reaction/action we should lock away in safety, hide in a special box behind the books in the library. I recently attended a “Lights for Liberty” event. (Again, opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of any employer or organization for which I volunteer. And so on.) There was talk of love there. Also, of course, anger, action, and voice. Does love have a place on the platform/ At least compassion/
I don’t know.
Oh dear. Did I mention this is a free-write/
Do we learn love
In another one of those 233 posts, I reflected on if love is an action-reaction we are born with or is it one we have to be taught/
Spoiler: I think it’s taught. And therefore, can also be learned, or unlearned, and has to be practiced as well. That blog is called, “Learning to Celebrate Love” and honestly, it’s a personal and fan-fav. I considered just reposting that because, honestly, it says a lot of the important stuff, also, I wouldn’t have to face the technical difficulties of this computer.
ANYway, this is a free-write…
I find comfort in this:
Photography by Jensen Sutta
And courtesy of Global Down Syndrome Foundation
I Believe Love Is
Love is personal and malleable. Love evolves. Love grows and retreats.
Can love teach us/ I believe, yes.
Can love break us/ maybe so.
Are we broken because of love, or because we were broken all along/
Can love heal us/ I think so.
I gather strength from the loves I trust. Mostly Marcus, of course, as his love fills me, pushes me, warms me, keeps me taking one step after another. I have never known a more honest love than the love he freely pours upon me. I want to deserve it.
I have a lot more to learn about love. About giving it, experiencing it, and channeling it. I’ve hit a stumbling block but am grateful to the universe for giving me the greatest teacher possible on the subject at hand.
This guy:
I’d love to hear what you think about learning and unlearning love? Comment on who teaches you?
Such an insightful read. Your voice makes me smile (I like your humor and astute observations.). I do think love is mostly taught as well. When I was a young mother with a toddler who was diagnosed with Autism, ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder, I felt overwhelmed by his behaviors, and even though I loved him fiercely I had other seemingly conflicting emotions because he was just so hard to parent (and be around day after day). I realized my love for him was completely unconditional even when my anxiety was through the roof! Humor and friendship with other special needs mommas was the balm that helped me shift my mind some and see some of his beauty beneath the surface.
Thank you.
And yes, our children are key to teaching us *how* to love, not *just* to love. Beautiful lessons in the end.
I do think love is taught but I also think it’s there, deeply in us when we’re born. We do SO MUCH to feel love. I mean, even people who are taught to hate are trying to please their teachers, right? Which is so heartbreaking. I love your quote on doing small things with love. I think that’s true. I also get feeling like you need to protect the love you give – these are crazy times and love is being vulnerable too, and being vulnerable is scary. Please give yourself grace, my friend. This has been an extra hard year for you, I’m sure. Hugs and love to you and yours. ALSO a child’s love is the BEST. I’m still learning. May we always be. xo
<3