Many times in the last 5 years I have wanted for what I thought was love…I think i was still so attached to the idea that love equates some prince of a man on the proverbial horse who will love and complete me…I guess that happens when one day you wake up to the harsh reality that he never was a prince to begin with and that the freaking goat he was riding was lame and three legged, and that love is so much more than that what this man had made it out to be.
I have come to believe deeply that life deals us cards that put us into a whole new game – you may have thought you were playing Uno, but actually you were playing strip-poker and the losses you were experiencing brought you closer to being more naked in front of yourself than you have ever been…that the game leaves you broken and scarred and traumatized in ways you could never imagine.
But just as when fire razes a forest it kills all the pestilence, all the unnecessary and from the ashes rise a bloom of flowers and trees anew. And the animals return and breed again, returning the once burnt and charred forest to an oasis of renewal.
So too, it is with us humans and especially with our hearts…we realize that there are people who have never left us; that they have been there in the quiet – cheering and praying for us – waiting for us to awake to ourselves – and to be ready to walk with us once again.
Because of the renewal we are brought to the doors of new friends and lovers, ones who celebrate with us our scars and burns; ones who rub ointment into the pain and nourish us with love and cosset our hearts and being with the essence of humanity.
Today I know love…for me and all I am, and that love is true and joyous and loud and brassy and bold. And I love it and I teach it to my sons. They know it as a TRUTH…and this is Love. Rich and Deep and 100% Real.