The Way Love Lives in Me

I’ve been thinking about love a lot lately. Not the rules. Not the protections. Just the way it moves through me. 

This isn’t advice. It’s simply an honest telling of how my heart loves, for better or worse. 

When I love someone, I just love them. If I say, “I love you,” it’s a commitment. A promise. That I am giving my heart to you. That I care about you. Unconditionally. All you have to do is show up. You don’t have to change anything about yourself. You don’t have to be someone different. You don’t have to modify yourself in any way. I just love you, at the very spot on the trajectory of life that you’re on right at this very moment. 

If I love you, I don’t expect anything from you. You don’t even have to love me back, which is painful, but it’s just the way I roll. Love shouldn’t be about what you can give me. It should just be about me throwing my arms around you. No strings attached. My heart knows when it loves someone, and it’s lame to keep that a secret, so I’ll tell you if I love you. Have you seen that meme- 

Normalize telling your friends you love them. 

Tell them a lot. 

Make it weird.

Yeah, that’s how I roll. I’m not good at keeping secrets about good things like love. Love gets stale when it’s kept secret.

Sometimes it totally sucks to love like this, so freely. Because a lot of times other people don’t feel the same. Or they do, but they- for one reason or another- can’t reciprocate. So as easy as it is for me to love someone, as big as my heart is, it is still really scary to tell someone how I feel. Only because it makes me so vulnerable. Because once you know I love you, you have the power to completely shatter my heart. You can hurt me. Leave me. Once you know I love you, the door to my heart is open for rejection and loss. 

So many of my friends tell me that I give love too freely and I need to make people earn my love. They say to put boundaries up. Not care too much. Live behind walls. Let people prove to me who they are and how much they care before I open my heart to them. I watch my friends do this, and it looks pretty great. They don’t seem to get their hearts shattered as much as I do. They make it look easy to hold their hearts closed a tiny bit. And it makes total sense. It makes sense not to go all in on anything before someone proves to you who they are and how they feel about you. It makes sense to protect yourself while someone works to earn your love. But I tell them, I don’t even know how to do that. 

I get it. I get the principal. I just don’t know how to do it. There have been times I met a person one single time and the very first time I laid eyes on them, I knew in my gut I would love them. It’s like my soul recognized them. I don’t know how to make someone earn my love. I guess I feel like loving someone is about me, not the other person. If I love you, it’s my choice. It’s my soul, wrapping around yours. Not because you proved yourself to me, but simply because you exist and you are magnificent. You don’t have to prove anything to me. Just exist. 

I brought my two younger kids to church so they could try out some volunteer opportunities. I sat in church listening to my pastor friend talk about love. He talked about “loving without reservation.” My exuberant soul jumped up and waved her arms and yelled, “Preach!” while my good Lutheran body stayed glued to the pew and nodded her head quietly. 

But that’s it! That’s what the Universe (or God or whatever Higher Power you believe in) is all about. Everything is love. Light and love and energy. Why would anyone want to limit love? Why would I want to hold love in and not share it? All anyone wants in life is to be loved, seen, understood. And all I know how to do with love is to give it without reservation. 

When I fall in love, my brain knows I’ll probably get hurt. Because the chances of two people being in the right place at the right time together, having the same feelings for each other, everything working out…that’s a miracle that rarely happens. But there have been a time or two that I have actually fallen in love. And the only thing I can do is love him without reservation. Without holding back. I put my trembling, raw heart in my hands and hold it out to him, hoping he’ll gently accept it. But that offering of love is about me. Not him. Regardless of his response, I will love him. He doesn’t have to do anything for me to love him, just be him. He doesn’t even have to love me back. His mere existence makes me love him. It’s one of the most terrifying things in the world, to tell someone that you love them. But to keep it in, to keep it hidden, feels like swallowing glass. I’d rather take the huge risk and hold out my heart, even if it’s rejected.

I do live by a couple Love Rules. First, I will not try to coerce anyone into loving me. No matter what kind of love we’re talking about- platonic or romantic, I’m not going to chase you and beg for your love. I’m here, giving you my love freely and without reservation. But if you walk away, shut down, close up, fade out… that’s your choice, and I will respect that.

And the second Love Rule is that I believe people’s actions more than their words. People always show us who they are and it’s our responsibility to believe them. Their words may say all the right things, but if their actions don’t match, I always believe their actions. 

Love is an invitation. When I love, it is an invitation to be in relationship with me. Whether that’s a friendship, a romantic relationship, whatever. I’m offering you an invitation to exist in the dynamic of love with me. But you don’t have to. You can decline that offer. You can decide it’s not for you. You’re free, just like I am, to make any choice you want. And I can’t begrudge you that. I can be sad. Disappointed. Heartbroken. But never angry. Regardless of your response to my love, my love for you can still exist. It doesn’t have to be reciprocated.

I used to tie being perfect with being worthy of love. “If I can be good and perfect in this relationship, they will stay. They will love me.” So when someone left or didn’t love me, I obviously wasn’t good enough. It was always my fault, according to my own skewed logic. 

Then I realized that it’s not all about me. I saw that I put ALLLLL of my energy into relationships. I did all the things as best I could. I give everything to the relationships I commit to…and sometimes it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. Sometimes relationships, friendships, just aren’t meant to be no matter how much I want them. I’ve begun to see that all I can do is offer my love, without obligation, without strings, without reservation. That’s all I have control over. Then you get to do you. You can choose how you respond to that love invitation. Accept or reject. But that response is out of my control. 

I don’t know which way is best. I think being cautious and wary might be easier and definitely safer in some ways. I think my way of loving hurts more. Sometimes I wonder why I can’t learn. Why can’t I take my heart, close it up in a little box, and make people prove their feelings for me before I let mine out? 

*sigh*

Ultimately, I know I don’t want to change the way I love. I don’t want to hold my love hostage until someone proves they’re worthy of it. I don’t know if it’s right, this “all in” kind of living. I’m really not sure it is. But I do think there’s something utterly beautiful about being loved just because you’re you and not because you've proven yourself. I’ve felt that kind of love, from family, friends. That kind of unconditional, “I love you because you exist” love, and it’s everything.

I’ve seen that some people are scared to receive that kind of absolute, undiluted love. Most people don’t believe it’s real.

But love is real, and real is rare.

Some people don’t want it, or don’t know what to do with it. All of that is ok, and I keep reminding myself that it is not because of me. I am only in control of myself. What other people decide, how they act, that’s on them.

I saw this little note on Pinterest and I’m obsessed-

If you tell me to tone down my love, I just cannot. 

My heart will always beat with the strength of a thousand hummingbirds in flight.

That pretty much sums it up. I can’t tone down my love. I don’t think you can ever go wrong when you love someone. Just love them unconditionally, for who they are, because they exist and they’re magnificent. It may not seem like a lot- to love someone- but it’s actually kind of a big deal. It’s actually a world-changing kind of thing.

Love is scary because it makes you so vulnerable, so exposed. I just think it’s worth it. Loving someone because they are a spectacular human, that’s everything. If more people felt that way, maybe the world would be a little softer, a little kinder. 

Even though it makes me vulnerable, and it’s absolutely terrifying, and I often get my heart trampled, I refuse to be scared of love. I don’t know how loving can ever be a bad thing. 

I don’t know if this way of loving is easier or harder. I just know it’s honest. And for me, honesty matters more than armor.

Tell your friends you love them. Tell your partner. Tell your family. 

Tell them a lot.

Normalize love.

Make it weird.