“I won’t ever find the right
person”, “I always land in the friend zone”, “love is the bane of my existence”,
“I don’t think I can ever believe in love again, look at my luck”, “I lost the
love of my life”, and one I’ve actually heard a lot recently, “I’m too old to
fall in love again”.
I won’t suggest a Hollywood
ending or some heavenly intervention will solve all the problem. I will however
say that love is there, it could be some other place, it could be near you or
it could be waiting for you to allow yourself to love.
Why do I write this? Because I’ve
read some romance novels lately and I worry some people think that love for
them is only a book topic, a central theme or a genre even. It’s not, it’s
alive and most times people just need to read the right words, listen to the
right advice or finally believe in themselves to let go of age-old mores they
insist are universal, eternal and unyielding.
One challenge is that just as
love is romanticized, so is the lack of love - the pain, the poetry of sadness.
Think about it, some artists are most inspired when they are at
their saddest and most miserable. I can relate, writing about experiences that are very close to
heart and pouring my pain onto a page in the hopes of diluting it just enough
to cope, and for the most part it’s helped me endlessly. So when I hear the
phrases I mentioned above, I respond with something on the lines of "have patience, eventually, EVERYTHING makes
sense, although it takes hindsight... love is no different."
Love knows no logic, follows no
set path and is rarely rational. Think about it, there’s at least one person
for which you went a little crazy for and not the good crazy, but the bad
crazy. Heck, I know some people who became completely infatuated with someone.
That’s because it is a volatile emotion that requires balance and a canvas to
express or else it may turn sour.
So to the phrases above, I have a
few answers:
“I won’t ever find the right person”. I think you will except you
won’t know it as obviously as movies paint it out to be. It’ll be someone you’ve
yet to meet or someone you’ve known for years and suddenly one day something
will click. I also highly recommend dispensing with the checklists of what the
perfect person or the right fit requires.
Love respects no requirements and does not work based on filling out a
preset of qualifications. It happens and people who don’t find the right person
often are searching for a specific
person and shut themselves to the possibilities of just flowing into love.
“I always land in the friend zone.” So? I landed in the friend zone
with my wife, we never seriously looked at each other as prospects and then one
day something changed, and we've been together ever since. Some of the best contacts in life happen by allowing
friendships to blossom and evolve and love is there... it’s tacit, it’s quietly
waiting for the right conditions to blossom and it won’t care what history you
have, it’ll just happen.
“Love is the bane of my existence”. The truth is I know some
fantastic people who are single and have been single for a while and I’ll be
honest, I don’t get it. From both sexes, great, smart, considerate, beautiful
people that have landed in the mindset that love is a bane - an antagonist they
need to dominate and conquer. I think this has to do with that poetic approach
to love many people take and the reality is that love is not a bane, it is not
an enemy to be thwarted, it is a subjective emotion impossible to accurately
capture with words for however we try... it is also something that is repelled
easily by negative vibrations. Think of it this way, if you approach an
encounter thinking that it won’t work and have no hope in the sheer possibility
of love, what do you expect to be the results. When you want to force love to
happen and arrive, most times it’s not love, it’s a poor substitute that eventually
devolves into its base ingredients. Don’t hate love and it just might love you
back.
“I don’t think I can ever believe in love again, look at my luck”. Love
and luck don’t always go hand in hand. Sometimes they avoid each other
altogether. That still doesn’t mean hope should be lost. If there’s a quality
that is purely human, it’s the full formed essence that let’s us picture a
fulfilled future... it is hope. And with hope, real hope, love will arrive.
“I lost the love of my life”. There’s a dangerous term writers and
especially romance writers do tend to use, which is soul mates. It is the
belief that there is one particular specific single person meant for you... and
if that person is gone, you’re up a creek without a paddle. I have been
fortunate enough to have people share beautiful life stories with me and in my
line of work I’ve been able to come in contact with various people... including
people who have been able to find more than one love of their life. No one
plans on losing a loved one, not to cancer, not to divorce, not to the hands of
another person... still it happens. And my reply to that situation is this,
just because one well has dried up, been poisoned or become someone else’s
property doesn’t mean that there isn’t another well that can quench your
thirst.
Lastly, “I’m too old to fall in love again”. This one is peculiar because
I’ve heard it way too many times recently and I have two stories to share in
regards to that. Firstly, I know of a couple who met at a Medicare Advantage
social club. A man 67 met a woman 63, both had widowed and they looked to each
other for companionship because they each had lost someone. From their pain and
their loss, love was born, from the ashes of marriages that had been decades
long, new life and new love arose. In another example, Robert and Ann Hunter
met after she widowed and he divorced. He was the owner of a boutique winery in
Napa Valley. They got married in their sixties and were together until this
past October when he passed away at age 91. Both these cases found love when
they thought there was none to be found. They let love into their lives, they
didn’t judge, they didn’t question, they didn’t let what they’d seen, heard, or
read deter them... they just flowed with their love.
This post is because I believe in
the power of words and the power a real connection can have in our lives. So by
all means, share these words with anyone that thinks there’s no hope in love and
that there’s no love for them to be found. Who knows, they may finally find
something within some words that invites them to truly let go and flow.
Peace, love and maki rolls.
JD
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