my love story.

"The Lights". A Photo by AM.

'Cause we're all just lights...when we turn them on.

Today I heard a woman say... 

"However many people we can help is exactly how many people we can hurt." We must be so incredibly careful with people, some of them need us more than we realize. Some of them love us more than we realize. 

To be loved from a distance, the story of my life.

Looking back, I used to blanch fearfully at the thought of feeling vulnerable with someone. I would run away as fast as I could, you couldn't catch me, I was the gingerbread woman. Eventually I was caught. It felt as if I'd been passionately arrested in the name of Love's Law, on the run for too long, I was seized and taken into custody. I was taken into the custody of the heart, the heart caged and hiding within the prison bars we lock ourselves behind--sentenced to life, never to be freed. I was behind bars, tangled "in love". I felt like I was in love for the first time. Being "in love"; to love someone far beyond comprehension it takes past lives to explain, does feel like prison in a way. How do you get out? So, I really loved someone for the first time, this was years ago. I needed to really love someone for the first time too, exposing myself terrified me for way too long. I was reckless and I needed to change. Exposure terrified me because I didn't know who I was. I had no idea. To love is to know yourself. So, I started to know myself, my real self, as I grew closer to someone else. I know a lot more about myself today, and I realize now that none of that matters anymore--hiding out, running away. To be "vulnerable" is to be honest and afraid at the same time. It's to be afraid of the reaction you may get from another person, the rejection, the truth...but to still know, at a soul level, if it's honesty you carry with you, it's light you carry with you. Honesty is the platform for which unconditional love is built upon, and being vulnerable is a sign of strength and courage. It's not a curse. It's the courage we need to take a risk...in the name of love.

In the "midst of the storm", whether it be a passionate romance going to hell, a life altering circumstance, or a loss of any kind; if we can remember to love, even when it hurts, then we can sail the violent winds and bursting tides of Love's sea in safety. Love is just the ocean, we are the captains. 

And in this sea of love....does love hurt? Yes, but only when it hurts our pride.

-AM