Taking Inventory: What I've Learned About Love

- When you ask to be shown love, be ready for anything! And, remember, you asked for it. The old saying applies, "Be careful what you wish for because you just may get it."

- Love knows NO bounds, no time, no space, and certainly NO limits.

- Love will push you as far as you can go, and sometimes a little further than that.

- Love is unconditional in its divine form; in human form...not so much.

- Love will stretch you to grow, and sometimes that hurts...a LOT!

- Love is a bed of roses, but that means the thorns, too.

- Love can be as loud as thunder and a lightening bolt to the senses, but other times it is only a whisper stirring in your heart.

- Love is shared and can come from the most unlikely of places.

- Love in the form of friendship means they will stick by your side even when the brown stuff hits the fan and spreads to all of its surrounding areas.

- Love can challenge you in the most unexpected ways.

- Love, or maybe the idea of love, can make you do things you never thought were possible.

- Too much love, too soon, can make you a little crazy.

- Love is patient, even if you aren't.

- Love will forever change you, and there is no going back.

- Love NEVER dies. It may transform, but it will never cease to exist.

- Love is a gift. Treasure it. Don't take advantage of it and don't hold onto it too tightly because you will lose it.

- Love is not for the faint of heart.

This is the short list. Some things about love cannot be spoken in words. And, other things...I guess, I am still learning.

Destiny

Be still, my heart.
Love is here.
I feel its presence,
Pulling you near.

A gift from God,
Filling you up.
It lights the way,
A path of stardust.

Truth be known,
Its always been.
Waiting for you
Within.

Take courage and see!
What others cannot.
And so it has been written
On the blank pages of our heart.

Do not be afraid
For every moment has been
Leading you to fulfill
Your destiny.

Untitled

Eerie silence saturates the void.
The earth's axle stationary.
Life has relinquished itself.
I am no more.

Someone tell my body
Meandering like a lost Soul,
It has not realized
And so it wanders still.

Softly, whispers fill a mind that is not awake.
Tingling sensations stir,
Commanding me to be roused.
"Come to me," the silence beckons.

Seduction tastes my lips.
Entices me into its arms.
Breathing its fire upon me longingly,
Reviving what once was.

Feeling powerless under its control.
Eyes bear into me.
Waves of desire hypnotize me.
Deep inside I know I cannot go.

My Master patiently awaits me,
Arms wide open.
Turning and running into them,
Not looking back.

The Call of Soul is Love

I am what I am.
It's all I can be.
Soul is calling,
Waiting for me to see.

Pressures build.
My world crumbles apart.
Life is overbearing.
Pulling me to start.

Create new worlds!
Love them into existence!
For the old is past,
The future transcendent.

Raise me up!
High above it all.
Take from me my fears,
I cannot fall.

Allow me clarity,
To look beyond the fog.
For love ever-present
Awaits me even in the bog.

The call of Soul
Rips illusions away.
Leaving only love
To come and stay.

The call of Soul has always been
Love everlasting, complete and whole.
Only our human self under the influence of mind
Loses all control, making us feel left behind.

A Letter to Mom

Spinning the hands of time backwards, I can see the exact moment I decided I hated you.

Screaming and yelling, banging, more screaming and the pillow over my head could not shut it out. I slipped out of bed, my small body shaking in fear and crept down the hallway to the stairs. One soft step at a time, I made it halfway down the stairwell before the two of you were in full view. I was maybe 4 or 5, sitting in my little pink pajamas on the steps, watching my dad break your nose. I hated him but I also hated you because you didn't defend yourself; you didn't defend me! Why did you let him hurt us? My little mind could not make sense of it.

Adolescence was even more difficult. Our relationship became more strained when I realized you didn't want me. In fact you had never wanted me, and you made it a point to tell me so. My anger at you boiled over, and it was just one more reason to feel justified for having these feelings towards you. I became rebellious, wild, and reckless to try and make you pay for not loving me yet you never seemed to notice. Not that we didn't have our good days, but they were far and few between.

Until I became a mother myself I couldn't even begin to come to terms with some of the intense feelings I had about you. We had a long hard road ahead of us; we did manage to work through enough of it that we could be civil to each other. As I observed you play with your grandsons, I would wonder silently how you were able to give to them so freely the love I had always longed for but you were incapable of giving.

Since you have recently taken leave of this world, I have been left with a whirlwind of feelings and wondering what to do with it all. All the unanswered questions are still there, and I have come to realize that they may always be there. It is only now I am able to say and truly mean it, I forgive you. You did the best you knew how, and I accept that. If you could've loved me better, I am sure you would have. I know I was not unlovable but rather it was your inability to love and that's okay. Even more than that, I forgive myself, and I am going to be okay. In truth I am already okay, I just have to remember I am.

So, Mom, I only would like to say, I love you and thank you for all the many lessons because it has reminded me of who I am. I have learned to be strong, compassionate, loving, and a wealth of other qualities. There was no other way to really learn except to experience it so I am grateful.

Wishing you love on your continued journey wherever it may take you.

True Love Needs Nothing

My heart has always had a mind of its own, and I have always been aware enough to realize that. Most times I have been true to it, and I have followed it no matter where it might lead. When I was not able to trust myself or where my heart was guiding me was the times I have gotten into the most trouble. I understand that now.

In the stillness of the morning, I allow myself to go within, for there and only there are the answers that I seek. It is a practice I have come to completely rely on. During tumultuous bouts of uncertainty such as the ones I have been experiencing, I have come to realize I have stopped trusting what it is I am receiving. I have let doubts fill me and incapacitate me. No more. My heart has never steered me wrong. My mind, on the other hand, thrives on confusion.

Love cannot be thought into existence because it is already there. If we choose to share it with another then it is a precious gift and need be treated as such for it to grow exponentially. If not it will wither away into nothingness like a plant that does not receive enough water, light, or loving care. Perhaps it was this subconscious knowledge within me that had sent me barreling out like a bull in a china shop in search of a love that is real and true. Little did I know, it was already there.

Relationships of an intimate kind have always been painful for me. Is it because I was looking for someone else to complete me? Why did I think I was not whole already? The realization has struck me like a lightning bolt to the heart. I am already who I wish to be and I need no other to fulfill my preconceived beliefs about it.

Of course, not needing anyone does not mean I will never have another intimate relationship. It seems only natural that when one truly is love then they have no choice but to endow it to others, although one need not be in a relationship to do this. In fact it gives me the opportunity to have one now more than ever, and the chances of it succeeding will be tenfold because of this new perspective. It says, you can be who you are and I can be who I am. We can respect and honor that about each other and, in doing so, we are free to allow love to be shared between us on its terms and not dictated by our own foolish ideas. True love needs nothing except to be. How we choose to express it is up to us.

Love is a Four-Letter Word

Major changes lodge me precariously on the edge of something I don't quite understand, not that I understood that much to begin with, but definitely and not especially now. There is a darkness present at the moment, hanging over me like an overbearing bully, and it taunts and challenges me. Exhausted I stare defiantly at it, feeling much like a lightweight wrestler or a boxer who is going up against the champ who is double his height and three times his weight. He has been pulverized in the ring but refuses to stay down. This is where I am at.

It's not that I don't want to give up, but I can't. I'm like the punching bag that gets whacked over and over again and yet pops back up. Given the choice I would probably play dead, but it isn't in me. I'm not sure why. It's both a blessing and a curse.

As ridiculous as it sounds, I feel as if love has deserted me. "What makes now so different?" I wonder. Certainly there have been other times in my physical existence where love seemed to be a not so nice four-letter word. For some reason, though, it is different this time. Maybe it is because I am in the process of a transformation of sorts.

My life has been one critical event after another, but they usually come one at a time, not all at once. Sometimes there was even a period of rest in between them, but it is not so at the moment. Presently I feel as if a pile of manure has been dumped over my head, burying me completely, and I am blinking back the tears so as not to make a bad situation worse. What makes matters more difficult is that I am the cause of at least part of it, necessary but still unpleasant. The timing may have been completely off, but who would've known?

Even still, throughout it all, I have realized that love is love. It does not care about the details of my every day affairs. It has no vested interest in what I think or feel or say or do. It just is. What does that mean? I'm not sure. I am still in the process of discovering.

All I do know is from my earliest days there have been times when I have known great absences of love, and I have tried time and time again to fill that void by giving as much love as I was possibly capable of. I did this because I knew in some strange way that this was me, this was my mission, to be and give love. What I didn't know is that I was missing perhaps the other integral part of the equation...receiving love. Maybe this is the key. One must have a balance of not only giving love but receiving it.

Some people are so battered by love gone wrong that they never allow themselves to be open to it again. To me this is incredibly sad. Alfred Lord Tennyson said, "It's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all." I tend to agree.

I am on the opposite end of the spectrum. The more I suffer, the more determined I am to discover true love, except nowadays after much turmoil I am willing to let true love find me. And, if I get hurt in the process, then I will pick myself up, dust myself off, and try, try, try again because I cannot imagine a life forever without it. In fact I don't think that it's even in my genetics to do so.

This quote sums it up quite nicely for me. "If you have it [Love], you don't need to have anything else, and if you don't have it, it doesn't matter much what else you have." ~ Sir James M. Barrie. And so it is.

Where Now?

Sitting here, looking at this computer screen stare back at me. It's bright white page glaring at me like it is saying, "Write something...anything...come on, do it!" But there's an emptiness inside that I can't seem to fill with words, and I am speechless. I will just write and see what comes out. There's always the delete button, right?

I'm in Costa Rica. It's a beautiful, tranquil place to be, but I've discovered something. Without love it is just another place. I am realizing more and more how important love really is in the grand scheme of things, yes, but also in the little things. With love you feel empowered to do anything! Put an 'S' on my chest and call me superwoman cause I can take on the world, but subtract love from the equation and you have found my kryptonite. I struggle like a turtle who has been turned upside down.

Love isn't something outside of us, though, so why do I feel this way? Why do any of us feel this way? We don't need someone else to fulfill that part of us; it is already there. All the same, I can't explain it, I feel as if something is missing. Here I am again on this cliff, looking down, looking up, looking within and wondering what now? Where do I go from here? Anywhere I want, I suppose, but I only dream of love. Everything else doesn't seem to matter too much.