Day 21: Love, Love, Love

It's only obvious that on Valentine's Day that I would speak about love. But today I am not only going speak about it, but make it my task of the day.

In the last week I have spoken about forgiveness and anger. At times such as these it is often difficult to feel love when you are angry with someone or when you have been hurt and you need to forgive someone. The common phrase, "I will forgive but not forget" often plays in my mind. I often think with that phrase that I can forgive you but I don't know if I can love you; maybe I could like you...but it may be difficult to love you.

What brought up the issue of anger this week was actually 2-fold. I had been dealing with feelings of hurt and anger that I couldn't put aside from someone who hurt me a few weeks ago. I was hurt because of a relationship in my life that was being ended by someone else for reasons I will never understand; and then angered because of things that other person said. These feelings were then taken out on people closest to me and resentment and issues I was having with other people started to control my life. Then BOOOOOOOM!!!! The anger task!

Today isn't about anger anymore. Today is about love. When life was falling apart around me this week I wondered if I would ever be able to love these people in my life again. For me, love isn't something I just freely have been able to give out. I don't say it unless I mean it. When I say it, its because I have a deep committed, trusting relationship with you. In other words, I am there for you no matter what. I love some of my friends. I only let certain people into my life to know every part of who I am and my past...those are the friends and the family that I love. And I love my husband.

I can say those things, but because of events recently, I had a hard time truly truly feeling them inside of me. I could love someone, but I wasn't always sure they loved me back. My trust issues and my own confidence issues often played a part in me not being able to trust others when they said it to me. Did it mean the same to them that it meant to me? Was it a word that they just threw at everyone? I am reminded of the old tv show, Falcon Crest, where Joan Collins's character in her wonderful English accent would tell Linda Evan's , "I just love ya, darling" and the next thing you would see is her pushing her into a pool or stabbing her in the back. Love has been passed around in word to freely and in action not enough!

I remember the feelings in the beginning of my relationship with my husband 12 years ago. The butterflies in the stomach, the sheer feeling of dizziness that would shoot into my head when he would grab and hold my hand. Why did I lose those feelings? Maybe it's because in a way I started to take love for granted or because I thought that other things constituted love. Maybe because I became so preoccupied with other things in my life that I stopped paying attention when things were being done out of love when it was right before my eyes. What I need to start doing again is seeing love in the small things.

Today, I am taking my husband out to dinner at a nice quiet, romantic restaurant...something we haven't been able to do for most of the 12 years we have been together. I am going to open my heart and start believing in love again. I am going to take each moment as it comes and not with anticipation. I will start to see love in the little things again. One great present my husband gave me this year is not so much just what he gave me, but what he didn't. He passed up on tickets to a certain Men's College basketball game for valentine's day night just so he could spend time with me.

Thank you St. Valentine for this wonderful day. (And by the way: Happy Birthday to my brother-in law Cully...[you are more like a brother to me] and to my father-in-law Steve!)