Love Victim

Thank you to all of you who read my last post about my difficulties with love and wrote, chatted, or talked with me about it.  I have many wonderful conversations since I wrote that and have read many of your thoughts and it has helped me a great deal.  I also did some meditation, which is new to me, something that Damascus and Wolfe have encouraged and helped me with, and that gave me some revelations too.

I think the best advice I have received has been to reclaim ownership of the idea of love, and the word itself, and what it means to me.  In many ways, I have always thought of love as being something that happens to me, something that inflicts itself upon me.  I think I have considered myself a victim of romantic love, something I "fall" into...something that cannot be controlled. I think this is a common theme about love that we often tend to believe and romanticize,but i think it is really unhealthy and often untrue. I think its something we hold onto as a way to not take responsibility for our relationships and actions and emotions.

In a related vein of thought, I have also have thought of love as something that is taken away from me. My largest life experience with it was abused from someone who claims they NEEDED it. He owned my love and I have a hard time of thinking about it any other way.  But I know that was only one experience, and I am learning about so many more ways to view love now that are so much more healthy and happy.

I think what I need now is to be selfish about my love, to reclaim as my own, as a feeling that I choose to feel and own entirely.  My love is something unique to me and I can have it for all sorts of people in different intensities and quantities. It is mine and I can do what I wish with it.  I don't have to give it away or share it but I can if and when I choose.  For now, I want to own it completely and cherish it and keep it and FEEL it. Maybe this is the first step to giving it to and accepting it from others more easily.

It maybe a little sentimental and cliche, but I thought about and wrote most of this post while visiting many of my most special sweeties yesterday, which was Valentine's Day.  It gave me lots of time to think about and appreciate the amazing people in my life and to let myself feel the love I have growing for each of them in unique ways.