What is love if not unconditional? If love exceeds time and space not without trial and tribulation but with expansion and insight then it is real, it is true. It is tangible. Because love is a lesson. Love is a lifestyle.
It’s taken me so long to finally write this because I promised myself I would handle this entry- especially this entry with care. To me this expression is delicate, topic widely unexplored as of late. I do not make the rules, I have only taken note of light and dark and how they’re not the same but they’re both necessary in order to keep our parts of “the deal.” To love and to be loved.
I recently admitted to my mom that since I was young I carried this deep guilt that I could never not be aware of but something for years I struggled to put words to. From day one, although my mom was and is far from perfect my mom has been proof that you don’t have to be perfect to know how to love and to be loved. And she infected me with that, and because I was given unconditional love, true love, I understood that I lived in a place where my peers can’t even imagine that even really exist. To most it’s unfamiliar, barely an idea. And I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t know that all I had to do was embrace it. I didn’t know that accepting what other’s struggles to fathom would heal me, and eventually heal others. I didn’t know that. But now I do. I know know that I was gifted with a foundation. A passion, one of the bravest hearts. Because it takes bravery to know true love. So get yourself a blue Gatorade and some twizzers, do whatever you have to do to get comfy. Sit still, spare me your time. I have some shit to get off. So I’m turning up the heat.
What is love if not unconditional? If love exceeds time and space not without trial and tribulation but with expansion and insight then it is real, it is true. It is tangible. Because love is a lesson. Love is a lifestyle.
“I’ve had to say goodbyes that I didn’t want to say. Some of them are angels now and that will always be a mystery. Some of them are still around, on earth, I mean. Some of them got lost.
I wonder why I am caught up in tragic situations. I wonder why my faith is tested. I want good and I want god. I wish it could be like that all the time.
And I remember I love learning. I love rebuilding…” - Anna (ig: @bounceebaack)
Love is discipline. Discipline is the ability to, despite external and internal ordeals, accept and overcome existing. Ha. Kinda like grief. A lot like grief. Love is also grief. So paradoxical, love.
Discipline is also everything you care about enough to remain still for. It’s what tethers one to oneself eventually others. A ritual, a religion.
Cycles
“I look to younger versions of myself. The innocent, the naive, the immature, the haughty, the flighty, the boisterous, the child. My past lives still exist within me, prior to the pain, hurt, trauma, heartbreak, loss, grief, pain. With all the clarity of my current moment, present self in this very moment. As I honor every part of myself, with loving compassion, I pour back into myself. I fill the cups of my souls past. I fill the cups I left empty, untouched. My cup runners over into a fountain of flow into myself, my past, my future.” - Kitty (ig: @kittyk333)
Love is a relationship, first with oneself, always with oneself that is shared with others. Everyone’s ritual looks different, religion looks different. Simply because when it comes down to it the way process our experiences and how feel, navigate, perceive, and learn them is completely. Our journeys are not the same. And they aren’t meant to be. But the only journey that matters in regard to your own satisfaction and the satisfaction of “the greater good” (the world lol) is yours.
Acknowledgement of strengths and weaknesses is really just vulnerability and when you are able to exist vulnerably is when you have decided to, as my friend Justin would say, “sign on.”
While suffering isn’t deserved it is part of the human experience. A mystery as Anna stated. Sometimes a mystery is nothing more than a circumstance, a situation solved through persisting. More living. Learning. As you gain more experience you’re able to answer more of those questions, fill more cups.
“It’s amazing to see through other people, and this is all part of the learning experience. Learning how to take in the good and the bad parts about love, you can experience the good parts but you also have to acknowledge the bad and you can’t let that just be your overall view on it because it will prohibit you from finding it again in other areas. You’re probably not even looking at or looking for where you’ll find love. And probably the smallest things, the biggest things, the weirdest people may be and all I feel so blessed so happy to have experienced love that when I did with her even if it was a short time. I am just happy to have experience romantic love outside of myself.
Im proud to say I loved her, I’m proud to say I let it go.” -Angie (ig: @angx3000)
Notable key points:
To love unconditionally is to be nostalgic
To love unconditionally is to know when you want better for yourself
To love unconditionally is to know when there is better for someone else
When you’re used to connection you’re used to conflict & resolution
Love is being able to let go…love is seeing the sun with it starts to sno-. Okay no that actually was corny but I’m laughing as I type this so I’m leaving it in. Okay but weather pun since we’re on that- you can still appreciate the rain from outside the window until you learn to appreciate it up close. It’s never personal, it’s just problem solving. Sometimes love is leaving.
Me caring less is caring more.
"i care less about the complexity of thoughts portrayed on me (things that made me who i am/give attention to) or external perception (how people see me) but more about my impact and living in my truth." - Mikayla (ig: @djallnaturel)
Love is acknowledgment
Love is like shedding a skin. When people shed from your life in response you shed a skin, and if you work with and not against the process you will become new. Like when snakes shed skin, and they’re new but like. But like it’s still the same snake with the same memories and same psychological makeup. Yeah that doesn’t change or grow unless you’re intentional about it. Yeah. Love is intentional.
“I understood the observer man awhile
Sit back and watch the world hat down
Everything is peaceful no worries
But life’s a chaotic hell
Heartbreak lies Homes burn to the ground jump in chaos or have peace not sure see
I’m nervous
A man must take his hammer and strike peace into the world or what’s his purpose” - Bobert (ig: @kingbobbymill)
And sometimes loving someone is taking a step back and putting yourself in that persons shoes even when they don’t fit. That’s empathy and understanding. Compassion. Because actions are simple, feelings are complex. But action is art, and so is love.
“To my best friend,
We will wake with a longing and lonely feeling under our covers.
This will be our motivation to heal for our lover.
Mere asphalt alone doesn’t change the things I feel.
The road to redemption starts with twist, turns, & bends but soon after it is straight and narrow.
Passion, pain, & peace does not come from stagnation.
You thought me that comfort can cloud creativity,
So with that I’ll take my leap of faith.
Please have patience I promise I’ll be there before it’s too late.
I love you.”
A letter from a past and appreciated lover
We broke up soon after that was written. And that’s how I know he really did love me, does love me. He left me alone understanding that what we had was only comfort, not creativity. Love is authentic expression.
Love and expression is inherently radical. By expanding and acknowledging your ideas, ways of expression, knowledge, passions, desires… you are freeing yourself from lack of exposure, ignorance. Now there is nothing wrong with ignorance at its core, but there is nothing wrong with the exploration either. Both must take place and be applied contextually to cause prevention of unsatisfaction, experience flow, patience, and personal liberation. But don’t become too caught up in the quest for true love. Burnout is inevitable when you’re not aware of the truth. Just know that liberation is fulfillment.
We’re the Same About Different Things
But he’ll really is necessary for heaven to exist, otherwise how would you know one from the other?
I’d never thought much about how I rather not get hurt, until I started hanging around people who were ahead of it…and I noticed it less. I noticed the difference because of how it made me feel. Unfamiliar, inexperienced- new. Acknowledged.
I think that sometimes we forget that our spaces of strengths are also our weaknesses. Because, I mean, we developed strength there for a reason. That area was worked, sometimes exhausted.
And it’s not your fault that you’ve known hell. But the fault of others that have also known hell. It takes a lesser evil within each of us. A reminder that we have room for light…and that it never left us.
Our addictions look different and we need each other to keep from giving into them. Call it even.
Written by muah! Me. Kalliope. Kiarra. Kiwi. Kourage. Biarra. The woman loved by many who loves them right back.
Love is knowing and loving yourself so deeply and unwaveringly that you find it outside of yourself and there’s no way to not recognize it.
Simply put, if you embrace the love within you, you’ll find it all around you.
I love you.