Unconditional Love

Love - there are so many ways to love someone. You can love someone and not be 'IN' love with them. My personal explanation of love...it does not mean that it is reciprocated. If I love someone, I want what is best for them and in reality, most of the time, they do not believe it is me. I am okay with that. Now being okay with that does not mean that I do not hurt...that I do not wish...that I do not cry. What it means is that I want them to be happy! If their vision of happy does not equal my vision of happy, I still want their vision to come true...with or without me. When you love your children, it is the closest thing that we as mortals can come to unconditional love...agape love...selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love. We cannot achieve this without being willing to sacrifice our own happiness for someone else's.

I am not saying that we need to continue in a relationship where someone cheats on us or is abusive (physically, emotionally or psychologically). I am not saying that we need to STAY or BE in a relationship at all. However, I truly feel that if we really loved the person, regardless of what they have done to us, we want them to be happy. To find what it is that they need to compliment (no one can complete someone else!) them.

I have loved. I have loved someone who was abusive. I have loved more than one who has cheated on me. I claimed to have loved them. I used the words but my actions did not always reflect what my words said. I was hurt and the hurt feelings over powered the love I once claimed to have. They hurt me; therefore, I wanted them to hurt. I let their actions modify my belief. As I reflect on my actions (reactions), I actually wonder if I really loved them? Did I know what love really was? Or was I just so wrapped up in their actions that I let it change my compass?

As I look back now, I have regrets about how I reacted. I was hurt...ashamed. And why? Because I had the courage to let someone in? Because I had the courage to trust yet again? Because I fell in love with someone who wasn't worthy of my love? Who didn't feel the same way about me as I did about them? Who may have felt that way but then changed their mind?

I did truly love them. I can look back now and direct my compass. I wish each one of them well. I pray that they find the happiness that they are looking for. Whatever that may be! I was not what they needed but that is not a reflection of who I am. It is a reflection on who they are and what they want. It isn't wrong! How they ended the relationship or how they treated me may have been wrong! But not wanting the same thing as me or changing their mind? That was not wrong.

It is truly an empowering moment when you can pray for the best for someone who has hurt you to the core. When you can still say, yes I love them enough to let them go with well wishes to find their true happiness. It doesn't mean that I would be dumb enough to ever take them back...I love myself too! :) I no longer harbor any ill feelings. I will always love them; they will always have a piece of my heart...I gave it to them...willingly. I do not need to be 'IN' love with them.

To my past, I wish you all the very best that life has to offer. I hold no grudges. I hold no anger. I am sorry for my reaction.

To my future, I have let go of my past. I am excited to see what you have in store for me!

As for today, it is time to live my life...today!

Some of us have given so much power to the people from our past that we are afraid of being loved again. After getting your heart broken, one of the biggest mistakes that you can make is, continuing to live your life like everyone else is out to break you as well. I know it takes time to heal. I know it takes time to pick up the pieces and rebuild again but everyone is not out to hurt you. If we continue to live our lives emotionally closed off from the world, there is a very big chance we will never get to experience real happiness. Being emotionally closed off will keep you safe because it will prevent you from getting close to anyone again but it will also turn you bitter. It will poison some of the other solid relationships with other people that you already have. Forgive who hurt you and take steps towards never reliving that pain again. Let it go so that you can let yourself grow into the person you were designed to be. Allow yourself the opportunity to fall in love again without holding on to the past. You will never see who is coming if you are always looking back at who just left.

When I die

On the die I day a lot will happen.

A lot will change.

The world will be busy.

On the day I die, all the important appointments I made will be left unattended.

The many plans I had yet to complete will remain forever undone.

The calendar that ruled so many of my days will now be irrelevant to me.

All the material things I so chased and guarded and treasured will be left in the hands of others to care for or to discard.

The words of my critics which so burdened me will cease to sting or capture anymore. They will be unable to touch me.

The arguments I believed I’d won here will not serve me or bring me any satisfaction or solace.

All my noisy incoming notifications and texts and calls will go unanswered. Their great urgency will be quieted.

My many nagging regrets will all be resigned to the past; where they should have always been anyway.

Every superficial worry about my body that I ever labored over, my waistline or hair or frown lines, will fade away.

My carefully crafted image, the one I worked so hard to shape for others here, will be left to them to complete anyway.

The sterling reputation I once struggled so greatly to maintain will be of little concern for me anymore.

All the small and large anxieties that stole sleep from me each night will be rendered powerless.

The deep and towering mysteries about life and death that so consumed my mind will finally be clarified in a way that they could never be before while I lived.

These things will certainly all be true on the day that I die.



Yet for as much as will happen on that day, one more thing that will happen.

On the day I die, the few people who really know and truly love me will grieve deeply.

They will feel a void.

They will feel cheated.

They will not feel ready.

They will feel as though a part of them has died as well.

And on that day, more than anything in the world they will want more time with me.

I know this from those I love and grieve over.

And so knowing this, while I am still alive, I’ll try to remember that my time with them is finite and fleeting and so very precious—and I’ll do my best not to waste a second of it.

I’ll try not to squander a priceless moment worrying about all the other things that will happen on the day I die because many of those things are either not my concern or beyond my control.

Friends, those other things have an insidious way of keeping you from living even as you live; vying for your attention, competing for your affections.

They rob you of the joy of this unrepeatable, uncontainable, ever-evaporating 'NOW' with those who love you and want only to share it with you.

Don’t miss the chance to dance with them while you can.

It’s easy to waste so much daylight in the days before you die.

Don’t let your life be stolen every day by all that you’ve been led to believe matters, because on the day you die, the fact is that much of it simply won’t.

Yes, you and I will die one day.

But before that day comes: let us live.

(not all my words but I can't remember where I found it)