Love

I’ve been wanting to write an update to my blog for sometime about my treatments. Not today though. What I can say for now is that I’m still flowing with the ups and downs of treatment. Or, at least, trying. Figuring out how to be myself, how to slip back into creativity after fatigue, and still manage all the appointments, prescription pickups, self-care etc. This week has been exhausting.

I’ve had some really good laughs though.
Belly laughing.
Laughs from resonating hearts.

This year I’ve been thinking a lot about love. I am awestruck by love. I remember first being in love and feeling my soul open up so wide, seeing life so vividly, the earth shaking, my being rooting so deep into the universe that nothing seemed to matter while at the same time every cell of every being seemed so sacred. It was awkward love as young love is, but it was really good love. It was love that saw me and wanted me as I was. An eros love, but an eros love that truly valued the life in me. It shocked me—and I don’t mean that lightly. It was life changing. Even thinking about it now I can feel my centre shaking like those days love washed over me.

I’d thought I’d been in love years before this. But, when I realized love does not impose rules on how one must be, I realized how one-sided my love had been. False love like this became easy to spot and it is abundant, unfortunately. The love I felt gave me purpose. But that purpose was just to be. And that purpose made me want the world to be well, if not flourishing.

“The transformative power of love is not fully embraced in our society because we often wrongly believe that torment and anguish are our ‘natural’ condition.”

bell hooks

I don’t know how I’ve been so blessed in my life. To have had that experience. To have met that person who cared so much for me that I wanted to ensure everything that makes life is thriving for them, for us, for me. I have been feeling so loved over this past year. I hope it is due in part to having loved well more than not; And I also hope that love can enter less hospitable places too… even if I am that place at times.

There’s so much to say about love. bell hooks is a good start. I may write more about it too. I love love.

The reason I wrote this: I was listening to a podcast the other day and the co-host, Autumn Brown, said, “love is what makes surviving worth it.” So true.