thorvalson.net : babble ether

If You Got an Email Telling You About This Link, Read On (and if you didn't, well, it's still good stuff)

Hi. My name is Stephanie and I will be your hostess this afternoon. Please be a dear and kindly follow me to your table, where I will seat you with gentle lovingkindness and offer you some reading material while you wait for your server.
The link above is from Jon Armstrong, husband of The Dooce. I really related to some of what he said here and thought that some others may as well, so I'm sharing. 'Cause that's what my mommy taught me to do.
Part of loving someone unconditionally is wishing for their complete happiness, even if their future happiness does not include yourself. HOWEVER, ALSO: Part of allowing yourself to BE loved unconditionally is knowing full well that perhaps your partner could find someone smarter, older, younger, prettier, more challenging, more forgiving, etc., and yet stick around, faults and all, because the bottom line is, NO ONE MAKES YOU HAPPIER. I have spent years running away from people, and one of the things I've learned is that it is much more difficult for me to accept love than it is for me to give it. The idea that someone could love me as I am, for who I am, and love me through my changes and struggles, not in spite of but in conjunction with my weaknesses, terrifies the shit out of me. What. Sort. Of. Gift. Am. I. Knowing he could be with someone different from me (and therefore perhaps better) is part of what makes me appreciate his presence in my life that much more. It's what makes me struggle to be a better person, a more complete and self-actualized human being. Without his presence, without the respect and love that I feel for him and the motivation that gives me, I barely even try. That's just the truth. It's part of my weakness: that I will do, because of this gift in my life, what I would not do for myself had I not been given this gift, or if this gift suddenly vanished. What is my growth, anything I learn in this lifetime, what is my spirit worth if I cannot share it with you? I should love myself more than that, I know. And I'm workin' on it. The world is a constantly evolving place, and we cannot possibly choose all of our own experiences. All we can choose is how we will react to what happens to and around us. And if one of those experiences is that of another human being opening up to you, and yourself opening up to them, you have a responsibility to yourself, to God, and to those who have yet to gain that experience, to ACCEPT IT as a gift.
You are the first person I haven't run away from. Opening my heart to love another human being in the way that I love you has been and continues to be a work in progress. The path to enlightenment is paved in shit, and part of our growth comes by shovelling through it together. Horrible analogy, and I'm sorry I can't come up with something prettier to say right now. And I don't mean that everything is shit, I don't mean that it has to be a constant struggle. It's not. I just mean there are challenges to face, and part of growing, part of loving someone else, is facing fears, stepping out of your comfort zone. That's the only way to learn. And in those moments outside of the box, in those moments when you feel most vulnerable, the holiest and most precious thing you can do is to reach out and cling to the ones you love, because they will be there waiting for your nervousness, your anxieties and fears, your faults and weaknesses, with open arms. Allowing yourself to be loved is perhaps the closest we can come as human beings to connecting with God. Realizing yourself. Facing yourself. Accepting yourself. And offering yourself to someone else, and letting them take you for what you are. That is true strength. It's a kind of trust that happens so rarely in this lifetime. That is the way in which I trust you. I trust you enough to come to you broken, knowing you won't try to fix me or change me, but that you'll just love me and hold me in a warm bath while I try to fix myself. That is what the human experience, what the love of two people is all about. And now I'm going to stop before I start crying.