Do you have to be a whole person to have whole love?
Fuck if I know.
Out of the gate, I would say no. I think there are a lot of less than whole people out there loving the shit out of each other... They are broken, bent, abused, addicted, confused, afraid, dishonest and so very lost...yet they seem to have found their way to something that works for them in the love department.
I get that you have to love yourself before you can truly love someone else. If there is one thing that I know for absolute certainty, so long as my ability to love me was so stunted and deformed, my ability to love anyone else was likewise misshapen.
Can we really only love others to the degree that we have worked out our own shit?
If this is true, why are there so many people willing to love with only small parts of themselves?
I have done a lot of fucking work on myself. Perhaps too much sometimes. I really have tried to address my issues and clear the deck of all my pain, disillusionment and delusions so that I can live right here, right now, authentically. But it seems to me that the more work I do, the less close to others I feel. Like a lot of people stopped 15 miles back and are perfectly content sitting right there, work completed. All good.
Sometimes, I feel like I am alone, having taken this whole self development thing too far. Like what is the point anyway? I keep meeting people on the path and the more work I do, the father a part I feel. Or maybe that is just a feeling to justify my current unwillingness to look at some pretty shitty behavior. Maybe it is both and...
It is such a dichotomy, to really look at yourself. To see yourself as both healing and broken at the same time. It is a hard image to hold onto...this idea that I am always going to be a work in progress, unless I quit working on myself.
I feel kind of like a 100 year old house. So many great qualities and attributes, but so much work to maintain it all. Something is always breaking down or falling over. Ideals and convictions being tested and fractured. Seems like I am forever calling the repair person out to shore up some new leak or fissure.
Yet, I know it can’t be otherwise...this is who I am. On the path. Trying. Working. Uncovering, discovering and discarding those parts of myself that warp me into being a less than a stellar human.
Maybe whole love is too much of a lofty goal. Maybe we all just seek our own level and then set about making that what we want. Maybe loving at all, no matter if it is whole, is a worthwhile endeavor.
I am reminded of a song by Howard Jones. I loved this song when I was a teen. I wrote the lyrics down over and over again because they resonated truth to me. They still do. Yet, despite more than 35 years passing, I still feel like I am on the outside looking in...
I love you whether or not you love me
I love you even if you think that I don't
Sometimes I find you doubt my love for you
But I don't mind
Why should I mind
Why should I mind
What is love anyway
Does anybody love anybody anyway
Can anybody love anyone so much that they will never fear
Never worry never be sad
The answer is they cannot love this much nobody can
This is why I don't mind you doubting
And maybe love is letting people be just what they want to be
The door always must be left unlocked
To love when circumstance may lead someone away from you
And not to spend the time just doubting
Yep, that still rings very true for me. I think it is more important to love no matter what, with your all, your whole self or however much of it you can muster up on any given day. I keep returning to the place where I am pretty sure that loving is the point and whether it is returned or unrequited or stinted or glorified really matters little.
For the rest of my life, I want to be able to love all that I encounter with however much of me I can access at that moment. For some, this will be enough. For others, it will be too much. For a few, it might be everything they have ever wanted.
I think if I am ever going to attain wholeness as a person, I have to try to love with whatever percentage of myself I am right now. It is hard sometimes and in my case, often fails. However, I have to believe that my willingness to keep evolving and growing and changing and owning my self centeredness will eventually give rise to a wholeness that I can love from.
I guess I don’t believe you have to be a whole person to love wholly. I think that more importantly you just keep trying to give it all you’ve got and not get too bogged down in the percentages. Love, is love. While whatever I am able to give may not be enough for some, and I know for others way too much. Perhaps there is someone out there who will be ok with what I can offer and help me do it better and more completely.
I do believe that there is hole love...and whole love. And that I have gotten that very confused for most of my life. For now, I am just going to keep on working on loving and giving it away regardless of what I get back in return. Keeping that door unlocked to love even when the circumstances of loving someone, may lead that person away from me. And allowing love to take the place of doubt and fear and loss and frustration. Just go for the love in whatever percentage I can. Often, the sum of the parts are greater than the whole...I sure as fuck hope so...I have been kind of living for that.
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