Today is all about celebrating the Saint of love – St. Valentine. If you don’t get too lost in supermarket aisles covered with cheesy Hallmark cards, it is actually a rather smashing idea, whether single, married, or in between options…pouring love over yourself, or someone else is quite a treat. I guess this day above and beyond anything is for couples though and I like that, because love is a union worth celebrating.
Love is a brave thing…not the love we can feel for every man by putting ourselves in their shoes, but the kind of love where we dedicate ourselves to each other, or a purpose. It’s a brave thing, because it involves so many things we wouldn’t have to do if we didn’t love.
Love is filed with sacrifices; of being there for someone through the good and the bad. Love is also about being vulnerable – totally open to showing how you feel, even when you hurt. It’s allowing another human being to see who you are to the core – naked in flesh, heart and soul. Love is sometimes also about giving up desires – in a monogamous relationship we give up our desire to be with other people, with our half-loves, so as to be able to grow the one love (or if it’s an open relationship: grow the love for however many people there are). Love is also about building enough strength and therefore confidence, to have someone invest in you. To have what it takes to be there for the person you love more than anyone. What’s more – love is about daring to lose, because who knows what tomorrow brings? If we are open love will always re-enter, but that’s quite hard to believe when you haven’t yet opened your heart to the world. Last, but not least love is also a commitment of time and energy; a willingness to invest yourself into making something amazing.
Yes, love is a brave thing and I salute those that have been brave enough to enter into a relationship with someone; who has dedicated themselves to loving another person and opened themselves to receive their love. I really do think couples deserve a day to marvel in the beauty of what they are creating, or stop to ponder if things have gone wrong and maybe set the record straight by pouring some more love into it?
It’s brave to love, but there is also a reward in the unrivaled strength you find in the bond between people. What you can do alone is little compared to what you can do together. However marvelous you feel alone, it’s still nothing compared to how marvelous you can feel together with someone you love; sharing your joy with someone and getting support through the rough times. It will take sacrifices, energy and commitment, but the reward in the form of the kind of energy that springs from true love is amazing.
For me Valentine’s day is simply a reminder to open myself up to love…to be brave…to take off one piece of clothing after another, until I stand naked in flesh, heart and soul in front of someone and am ready to invest myself wholly and fully into that one person and receive them as they are…and as an added bonus I’m pondering all the lust, sex and passion I will get from my next relationship…
The truest tales require time and familiarity to become what they are. - Erin Morgenstern
It’s brave…to be naked…
