This past year, I have had trouble loving selflessly. I’ve been told my whole life, or at least it was implied, that love was an agreement, and if one party decided they didn’t want to love me anymore, it was idiotic for me to stick around and wait for them to want me again.
Someone that I had trusted and loved and relied on essentially told me that I was worthless to them, and despite the years of support that I had provided and scarring that I had endured to protect this individual by being strong for them -- when all I wanted to do was fall apart -- I felt that I was no longer wanted or needed. I was left alone and floundering, once again having to grow up way too fast.
I told myself that it was OK to retreat into myself to protect myself, to decide against loving people because people didn’t deserve my love. The few times I made an attempt to reach out after this decision, I was shot down, so I subconsciously decided that I was just going to keep everyone out who hurt me. The only people allowed inside of my circle were people who had gone through the same pain as I had and, therefore, could not bring themselves to hurt me. I told myself, “I love so and so, but I can’t speak to them or open myself up to them or get too close, because they will most likely hurt me.”
“Love is a choice. Love is an agreement. Love is a decision.” Growing up in Christian circles, especially, this mantra was repeated to me over and over. Love is logical. Love makes sense. Love is just what we do, unless people hurt us and then we cut them off to keep ourselves safe.
So I told myself that I loved because that was the right thing to do, but I had a hard time believing it. How could a feeling that stemmed only from doing the "correct thing" inspire love songs? How could it cause a soldier to throw himself on a grenade for his buddy? How can something that only consists of “a decision and the choice to do the right thing” be something that inspires passionate paintings and poetry and a million and six movies? I’ve struggled with this for years, until recently I realized that love is not simply doing the right thing.
Love is idiotic. Love is chaotic. Love is downright stupid. I mean, think about it. Love is putting someone so much before yourself that you forget about your own needs -- unselfishly, dangerously. Love is being ready to accept someone back with open arms at a moment’s notice, even though they have spit on your face and abandoned you completely. You stick up for yourself, but you stay. Love is 3 a.m. conversations to remind someone how beautiful and wanted and irreplaceable they are, even though in three months they will threaten to hit you. Love is reaching out and getting burned, but keeping your hand in the flames forever, waiting for the other person to finally grab on to your hand and get out.
Love might be a kind of choice, but it’s not a choice to stick around with no emotion because it’s the right thing to do. Love is a choice to be there passionately and idiotically, with no sense of self-preservation. Love is all-consuming. Love is putting yourself out there regardless of the consequences, unafraid and unphased by being rejected. And realizing what true love is, I have decided that I am done loving cautiously.
Who cares if I get burned? That’s not the point. There is a hurting world out there, there are people in pain, and I am called to love them with a passionate love, not a logical love. I need to love whether it makes sense or not. Even though I terrified of it, I am determined to love recklessly.
