Today the world woke up to an abundance of love, balloons, chocolate, flowers, kisses and dreamy looks. If this image triggers resistance inside yourself, please continue reading. In fact, even if it doesn’t, keep on reading.
Yes, today we celebrate love. Again. Aren’t we tired of it? Exhausted even? I honestly had enough! I always had enough! So much that I can afford the luxury of saying that maybe it has always been too much. I’m not necessarily talking about the one I’ve received, but more about the one I offered lavishly to anyone and anything: my family, my husband, my friends, the people that I didn’t like but I forced myself to come to like, the ones I’ve forgiven, to my passions, even to my thoughts or my inner demons.
From a very small age I’ve been taught to embrace love and I’ve enjoyed doing it so much that I became addicted to the act of loving. Unfortunately, I gradually faded away within whom and what I loved, as my way of loving has always been excessive, involving yearning and clinginess. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t without rewarding, but it was very much about striving and very little about evenness. It has always been a race against time, a strive for righteous, even a permanent thirst for the reward.
Thereupon loving and being loved didn’t always bring me peace, but on the contrary it made me behave erratically. It swept me off my feet, only to let me feel vulnerable, fragile, overwhelmed, unsettled, eager to change, to become, and only in the luckiest circumstances, just to be. But lately I just want to be, to rest in love, to breath in love, to be enough and, beyond anything, to be aware. To allow myself space to observe the unveiling of everything that has to do with love.
And this is why today I don’t want chocolate, jewelries, restaurant, balloons or other corny things, which is just waste. I want to breath and to be still, to root myself. My attempt is not meant to steal me away from love, but to return me to what I love in the most gentle, nurturing way. I’m not seeking liberation, but the capacity to further bend my heart, to be able to love more. But in order to succeed, I need guidance to gain strength and to learn how to surrender to my deepest self, the one that has no need to offer love, because it’ s love itself. The purest form, the one that has no lust for waste.
It just exists.
call me cynical, but isn’t valentines day mostly commercial. What you are talking about is a state of being that people meditate on for a lifetime.
Thank you anyway for this lovely article, I really enjoyed reading it like all of your articles 🙂
Yes, aren’t we all tired of Valentine’s Day? Don’t we all know that this is mainly commercial? Is it LOVE what we appear to measure in lavishing gifts, parties, loud music, hearts, and other useless things? Love is the essence of living, and yes, love makes us do things we would not normally do, love is joy and sadness at the same time, love makes us live and die with unique intensity. Love makes us burn and freeze. We are or should be the fruit of love. As babies, we receive and accumulate love, just to be able to multiply it and give it back. Isn’t it amazing how fast babies learn how to give their love? True love is as deep and mysterious as life or death. The most beautiful thing for a human is to be capable to love and give love. To enjoy giving love. To embrace love with grace and to celebrate it every single day. With a look, a hug, a gesture… And yet, here is Valentine’s! What do you do? Frown? Express disgust/disapproval? Ignore? Run to the next shop and by your sweetheart a red heart?
I think that Valentine’s is great, regardless all the commercial kitsch that comes with it. Because is a day when we do think of LOVE.