A friend called me during a work shift yesterday and I had to send her to voicemail.
She texted me shortly thereafter several happy birthday memes and it made me smile.
I texted her later that day saying thank you and that I was sorry I couldn’t answer.
She said, “Oh that’s okay. As long as you feel celebrated that’s all I care about.”
And boy did that line make my day.
The paradox of love is that the deeper you’re in it, the more vulnerable you are to the pain of its loss.
That’s what makes love so scary.
Its impermanence. Its fragility. The fact that it comes with no guarantee.
People promise forever… to have and to hold, for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as they both shall live… and yet, often end up getting divorced well before they’re anywhere close.
And it doesn’t take many deep experiences of pain before guardrails are built.
And what many people might do is put a throttle on their love. Hold back. Build safety mechanisms that prevent them from going all in and risk feeling a proportionally deep pain again.
But… that’s the paradox of love. The less vulnerable you are to the pain of its potential loss… the more shallow the love will feel.
And shallow love is no way to love.
It is indeed as Lord Tennyson suggests, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
Maybe it’s just that we shouldn’t promise forever… and should promise instead to always love fully. No throttles. No holding back. No assumption that now will take care of forever.
Just the promise of no guardrails. Not with you. Not in any of the renewing nows.
Just a limitless sky above and bottomless pit of the emotional spectrum.
For you. For me. For us.
P.s. This idea is what inspired the poem, Don’t Say Forever.
When somebody you love turns and walks away… they don’t take your love with them.
Your love is exactly that… love that’s made and expressed by you… for you… within you.
What that person did was give your love a mirror to look into… a love to emulate… a love full of permission to model yours against.
What that person did was help you grow your love… realize a more full version of your love… express the unhindered, unrestricted, unapologetic form of your love.
And because they helped you unleash this elevated version of your love… you love them for that… and they became the target and focus of its powers.
But they do not become the possessors of it.
…They simply take the mirror and model with them when they turn and walk away.
It’s up to you now to become that version of yourself independently… to express a love at that level that simply overflows—not targeting any one person in particular—but rather one that radiates towards everyone you cross paths with…
One that allows you to become the loving person your best version knows you can be.
P.s. This is a response piece to the poem I wrote yesterday.
You are so much more likely to find the love of your life while you’re in love with life.
Think about who you are when you’re in love…
Radiant. Energetic. Generous. Bold. Excited. Kind. Helpful. Cute. Funny…
And I suspect a lot of people mistakingly think they need to be in love with a person in order to express this elevated side of themselves.
But the truth is, you just need to be in love with life.
And if you can figure out what makes you come alive and express yourself in the above ways…
I suspect the love of your life will finally figure out that you’re the one they’ve been waiting / looking for.
Two of my friends have been butting heads recently.
And it’s for no reason other than their personalities clash. And even though they’ve been friends for years… they’ve also been evolving for years.
It’s nothing malicious… they just don’t agree on things… and feel more strongly about their opinions… and don’t understand why the other person misconstrues or misunderstands what they say and feel.
And here’s the thing: that’s okay.
Not all of your friends will be friends for life.
You will evolve. They will evolve.
You’ll slowly get pulled in the direction of your ever changing tastes and preferences and ideas and goals and unique circumstances.
…And so will they.
Sometimes, those directions stay aligned for a lifetime. And other times they stay aligned for a season or chapter of your life.
…And that’s okay.
There is a story of a little girl who got home from visiting her friend later than her mother had expected.
When her mother asked the reason for the delay, the child said, “I was helping Jane. Her doll broke.”
The mother asked, “Did you help her fix it?”
The child said, “No. I helped her cry.”
Don’t confuse helping with fixing.
Sometimes the best help is help with feeling.
This past Saturday was my sister’s last day working at a restaurant she’s been at for about a decade.
Seeing as though that restaurant had served as her work-home of sorts for so long, I saw it as a cause for celebration.
So I invited a bunch of family and friends to join me for a drink and in leaving her a nice tip on this celebratory day—an effort she had no idea about.
To both of our surprise, we had an almost unanimous turnout.
…And to the two-ish people who weren’t able to show, we made plans to have a drink and leave her a nice tip on the celebratory day of her working her first shift at the new place!
The thing about celebratory events… is that you really don’t need much of a cause to have one. In my experience, people love being invited to events… love getting out of their everyday normal… love engaging in celebration—regardless of the reason.
…There’s so much dread and pain and grief and horror and fear being slung at us daily that when we get gifted excitement and joy and positivity and honor and connection—it can feel like a literal cure.
What cause for celebration is present in your life right now?