Love Lessons

 2/14/2025

Today the world seems to be on fire with love. Commercialized, dipped in chocolate, flowery, and fragrant love. Loud and noisy love. On fire love. Shiny. Polished. Expensive. Calculated.  

I'm thankful for the love that is none of those things. Because I stopped settling for that top and most outer layer of it, the love from a distance kind of love. 

Instead, I look to the love of the friends I'm so fortunate to have. The ones who show up for me when things are messy, emotional, tired, sweaty, stinky, sticky, unprepared, scared, and brave.  The friends who can get sassy and dressy and go out to a nice ticketed event but know the real me is happy in jeans and a t-shirt, with fake pearls and mismatched ribbon shoelaces. The ones who love me and show up for me despite what an inconvenience it is for them to do so. For friends who have shown me what it means to show up. To be present. The ones who make me feel like my broken heart is perfect in a world hellbent on making me feel the opposite. I'm reminded that there isn't "one person," who can "make," me feel anything. It's a lot of people, walking some paths with us when they can and others who walk the rest with us. Sometimes all together. Sometimes separately. And sometimes, sustaining me to walk specific paths and adventures alone. I'm thankful for those friends who endure my driving, music, last minute adventures, messy hair, and mismatched forks, spoons, cups, plates, and furniture. My mismatched life. The friends who love me in my winters and remind me that they have winters too. The friends who allow me to sit with them in their winters. Who call me because they just need someone to listen sometimes, too. The friends who tell me about the little and big things that break their hearts. The friends that text back when I send a "tell me something good," text. The friends who share 1/2 of their sticky peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the middle of nowhere and think of me when they see a new kind of gummy bears on the shelf. The friends who listen to me whine about the same things and believe in my ability to face difficult things. I'm thankful for the friends who show up for me when I am toeing hard things in my life because they can't imagine me failing or finishing such a big thing alone. They don't want me to call and tell them about it, they want to be IN it. I'm thankful for the ones that show up, in spite of what it may mean for them to do so. To stay when the world and other things also call them away. 

I look at my children for love. Each one, a sprout of love. Bright green with newness and each with love languages of their own. They give me something important to pour my love into and receive it back in a million different ways. Like helping me pull my cowboy boots off, laughing at me when I use words like, "Rizz," and "Aura," wrong. They give me honest feedback when I ask for outfit/shoe combo advice and share their heated blanket on the couch. They don't whine when I steal a bite of their cereal in the morning with groggy eyes. They offer to share the batter when they finish whipping up some cookies and quietly come up and hug me after dinner and tell me that they loved it. It's bringing the groceries in and suffering in the back of the car sitting closer to one another than they'd like for 4 hours just to go and hike some miles with me. They endure my playlists and send me, "Goodnight, I love you and miss you mama," texts in the middle of the week. They laugh at me when I cry about JJ dying on the Outer Banks and settle for tuna sandwiches or oven pizza for dinner when it's been a long day for me. They make me necklaces and earrings and mow the lawn. They find pretty rocks for me on hikes and send me reels of puppies and seals. 

Regardless of the WHO, whether I'm thinking about the love of my friends or the love of my children, what makes it true, authentic, palpable and resonating love for me is that they all demonstrate these qualities: Presence, Time, Proximity, Thoughtfulness, and Plans. They are all relatively quiet and somewhat bland to the world's eye. And, if I blinked it would be easy to miss them. But, when I take a minute to truly think about the "LOVE," I need in my life, it's all of those things mismatched. Woven together into a tapestry of a meaningful and connected life. A healthy life. A soul-feeding, nourishing one. 

Bouquets of flowers on a special holiday for love are beautiful and nice. But, so is a "Look at this 4-leaf clover I found in the yard, you can have it." And, "These chocolate brownies are the best you've ever made," with chocolate teeth and sticky fingers. On an ordinary day. Doing ordinary things. Nothing grand or loud. Not showy. Real. Pure.Together. Right beside me. Because love DOES. And my favorite kind appears dull. Mundane. Ordinary. Mismatched. So today and tomorrow and next week..that's all I'm willing to settle for.