I warned you if you follow my writing or my blog, I’m open and I get personal. So if that’s not your thing, best not to continue reading.
We live in a time when LOVE is all the rage; but who really knows what it means anymore? Is it sexual attraction because that’s what the media is all about? Is it soul-mates? There’s a word we never hear anymore. I think it’s all surface and no depth. But then, what do I know. All I can say is for some reason I must make some really bad choices because ‘real love’ eludes me…or does it?
I found the meaning of “unconditional love” several years ago.” I’d fallen in love with Navy SEAL and if you know anything about that life then you also know there’s very little that I can reveal. But at a crucial point in our relationship we each had a choice to make. His was following a higher calling, a belief that giving back was his purpose. He retired, then took off to Africa to work with orphans. I thought he’d take a plane to Mexico and be with me. So for two weeks I sulked and refused communications. And then I woke up one morning and I understood that this is unconditional love. If I truly loved him for everything he stands for, how could I stop loving him because MY heart hurt? So I gave myself a good talking to and began a four-month communication that will remain as an incredible time in my life. I rejoiced in everything he was accomplishing. He shared his life in photos and his heart with everything he was able to give me at the time. And then he died. I immortalized him in my writing. I know it would make him smile.
What is unconditional love? Maybe it means different things to different people. Sometimes we have to accept conditions that we hate, we despise, and we cannot change. But does that mean we don’t love? Does that mean we hold back on our love? Does that mean we don’t want the best for those we love, even our romantic partners?
The second time I made a decision to love someone unconditionally has covered a span of eleven years. When your lover disappears on a “business trip” and you don’t see him for four months, it’s damn difficult as one of my friends would say. But it’s even worse when he goes on to spend the next part of his life in-and-out of hospitals trying to stay alive. And yeah, I have a thing for people who work in things they can never talk about. And if any bad guys are reading this, I know nothing of value. And being the eternal optimist, I waited a long long long time before I moved on with relationships. But the last 18 months he’s been on life support. He’s the bravest man I know. I will love him until the day I die. Every day I send a message and hope that he’s well enough to read it. I do it for him, and I do it for me. And yes, about every couple of weeks I get a message back. And no, I wouldn’t let me devote my life to be with him while he’s dying. He told me I had to move on with my life. Even though he knows I will never stop loving him because my love is unconditional.
And when I did move on and open up to love again, DAMN. I’m writing and shaking my head. What is it with me and impossible situations? This one is the most stupid, ridiculous, impossible, and heart-breaking one yet. But I’m dealing with it. Why does it always have to be f**king ‘unconditional?’
I have a mantra for the last ten years of my life. Every morning at 9 a.m. my communication devices remind me: I LOVE myself, and I am enough. And forgiving yourself for falling in love with the impossible, no future, no hope, makes no intellectual sense-man has to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever allowed myself to do. Pass GO and don’t stop until your heart is broken. So I will go into my cocoon and write it all out.
I always follow my heart, and that bitch makes me pay for it, over and over again.
Repeat after me: I love myself. I am enough.
Today I’ve written it a hundred times.
And I will continue until I believe it.
This too shall pass.
Lynda Filler 