There are different kinds of love. As you go through life you get to taste many of them. There is no how to manual on any and as for the one that can run deep enough to change your life, you’ll know it by seeing it not with your eyes but with your heart.
You’re ready to love when you’re willing to know more. Of life, of the temporary state of being, of yourself, of being weak and strong, of being right and wrong, and knowing that being right or else has nothing to do with being. You learn, you grow some more; again. And grateful.
Some people love in ways that make them reinvent themselves or forget themselves.
Some love in ways that make them want to know themselves because someone shows them they’re worthy. Someone showed them the path to themselves, and they’ll never be lost again.
That is the kind of love that will help you find yourself and blossoming as you do so.
That love that won’t let you live a second more unless you drink its cup to the last drop. And the last drop will never come because there is no end to it.
You’ll know it when you feel it. If you’re lucky.
The certainty will be astounding and humbling. Like a thunderstorm opening the skies and letting out the light like a bunch of wild horses pounding down from the clouds right into your heart, and then stopping there to let you enjoy their wild beauty. They’ve come home.
You’ll fear they’ll leave until you see them feed on the grass and drinking the brooks that you once thought were dry and the land underneath cracked and tired. You’ll fear until one day you won’t anymore. You’ll know they’re there to stay.
Forever becomes permanence and it humbles you. Do you deserve it? Don’t ask that. If you ask of yourself, you’ll ask of others and that makes many dreams crumble before they take off flying. Fear kills dreams.
There are many kinds of love. You’ll never know when and how, you’re never ready and the game has no rules other than a necessity for open-heartedness. It’s not a word, you say? That’s just it. You’ll have to invent many as you go. You’ll have to write stories of losing and finding yourself, stories of daring to believe, courage to let yourself be shaken, courage to fly high when flying low is all you thought you could handle.
Most of all, stories of being vulnerable. Of learning how to. Of learning to never pretend you can smile when a smile burns the inside of your body.
Stories of being true.
If you are ready to be true, you will find the rest. It’ll come. Just open your heart.
Most importantly, never judge any kind of love that comes your way. Be grateful. You’ll grow in kindness and patience and strength. You’ll feel alive. It matters.