Love...
that is
the theme lately...it overwhelms me, it consumes my thoughts, it is my heart’s
desire. I have loved in my life. I mean...I am 35 years old. With no true role
model of what love was, I forged ahead to try and figure it on my own. I am in
love now...it has its days when it is the fairy tale I have dreamed about (as cliché
as it might sound) and other days it is the ocean...seeking to drown me because
I am too tired to stay afloat. Love is hard, love is vast, and love is what
makes it all worthwhile. Love is what I fight for daily...sometimes a losing
battle and sometimes my sweetest reward.
Today, it
was my losing battle.
I love
hard, intensely, and deeply. I love with everything that I have within me. I
give my heart and soul to whoever the object of my love is. Does that always
work out in my favor? Not even close...But God has granted me with the ability
that no matter how badly I am hurt, I can (in time) offer my heart to another.
Sometimes that is a blessing and a curse.
Today it
was a curse.
As I was
chatting with the man that currently has my heart, a man that for a few weeks I
could tell that the end was near but I had promised him from the beginning I
would never quit. I would never walk away…unless he told me that is what he
wanted…in the midst of conversation today I receive this email:
“i do not mean
or intend to be disrespectful. i can love different people, you even mentioned
understanding what that feels like. but you are right, i need to focus on one
person. it is the part of growing and making a decision. i don't want anyone to
be upset with me and so, i try to balance and juggle everyone as often as i can
and it just gets to be too heavy and burdensome. eventually, i fall and so does
everyone else i've been trying to handle. scriptures tell me i have to be true
to God and true to myself. not doing so doesn't do He or me any good.
i am going to focus
exclusively on her. i loved her since i was a kid and i hurt her by not
choosing to be with her and instead settling for what was safe and convenient
to me before...a person who loved me in the way i love her. but love involves
risks and faith. and i've learned that it should be selfish, not shared,
exclusive and not collective. wanting to be with her will cost me a lot,
including a lot of lonely and quiet nights, which i hate. but, she is worth it.
i know there will be things that she does not bring to the table that i know
that you do, and thus, the decision to pursue her might seem foolish. but, it's
where my heart is. if i seek something with her and it doesn't pan out, and i
lose you in the process forever, then that is the chance i take and consequence
i live with.
i love you dearly,
danielle. but, i've got to follow my heart and it is with her. it always has
been. she is the love of MY existence.”
He has
decided it is time to give his whole heart to this women…someone that came back
into the picture after we had been involved for some time. But that is his choice.
Love is a choice. Sometimes the choice hurts.
The ironic
thing is I understand completely how he feels. I have loved more than one man
at a time. I know what it is like to want to split yourself with two people
sometimes even three because sometimes our feelings don’t follow logic…but we
have a choice.
He has
made his choice.
I have
made similar choices before. I can honestly say, I have loved every man that I
have ever dated seriously. And I can honestly say, that it has never worked out
in my favor.
A friend
recently shared a quote that he read some time back. The quote simply states,
“All women have three men ~ the one she loves, the one that loves her, and the
one that takes care of her”
Well, I
have not found that to be true in my life. I have had “the man who I love”, I
have had the “men who want to love me but claim they don’t know how”, the “man
who would love me if only XYZ would change.” You get my point. Real life is
never as poetic as the writers and those we quote make it out to be. But, I
think the more interesting question to ask is, “Can men and women love more
than one person at a time?” Because that is what consumes me? When do you
decide who gets your whole heart or is it better to fragment it here, there,
and somewhere else?
So, I
believe that no matter what…we can love multiple people at one time. We can attempt
to share our souls with more than one person at a time because different people
inspire different things at the same time. I have never inspired anyone to love
me wholly…to pick me in the midst of the storm…to say I. Am. The. One. That. Is.
Worth. It. Now, I am heartbroken but not broken…I am sad but not without joy…because
I know that at the core of it all I am so close to the Proverbs 31 woman that
God would have me to be. I am better because I have lost…I am hard to remember
yet impossible to forget. I love you too…but…it never seems to matter because
who I love never loves me back in the way I desire. I obsess. I fantasize
about.
