...Not an Excerpt

There was a fierceness to her love...a spirit behind it, that while ethereal, was still visible...at least to him. It wooed his mind, swayed his spirit, promised fulfillment to his longing. He understood at once that if he tried to grasp it, it would never belong to him, but if he waited open and ready, it would rest upon him, as lightly as the touch of a butterfly's wings. He could not imprison it, but he could accept it as a gift. It thrilled and terrified him all at once, as the enormity of her willingness to give this gift showed him the depth of his responsibility to keeping it safe. "This is love", he thought..."this keeping and treasuring and protecting of this gift."

He wondered at the vulnerability he glimpsed. The extravagance of her actions belied the shyness he saw reflected in her eyes. Those eyes! One look from them made him want to cherish, protect, and honor her. He wanted to dive deeply in to the pools of trust shining out at him.

Is it silly of me to believe this exists? That how I feel love should be, isn't just all hyperbole? That out there somewhere is a man who's waiting to  be loved with the singlehanded ferocity love can be? Not in the negative, jealous, selfish way so many think is love, but in the single-minded, all encompassing, passionate way I know I could love? The scene above is not an excerpt from a novel. It's just some thoughts I jotted down last night before I went to sleep.

Mature love is never 50/50. It's always 100/100. It doesn't track movements, keep score, or remember hurts. It goes all out, all the time, full throttle, and it is fueled by trust. Without trust, it dies. A slow, painful, agonizing death. You cannot love someone you do not trust. You cannot have someone's best interests at heart if you are always looking for ways to trip them up and trap them, so that you can finally say, "Ah ha! I told you so!"

 Love is passion. But, it is also quiet, steadfast, instinctive trust in someone other than yourself. It is the relief of simply knowing that after a bad day at work, or after a confrontation with someone, there will be someone there to hold you...to wrap you in arms of comfort and remind you that you are enough precisely as you are in this moment. It is also in the communion of sharing the precious, good things that come in to our lives. Its spirit is shown in times of trouble, and the fabric of trust it's built on is made even stronger during the good times.

I won't ever pretend to have all the answers. But in the course of my own life, my hope is that I've learned lessons that needed teaching along the way. Until the time is right for my own love story to be written, I will wait (not always patiently!) because I understand more every day that I am worth the wait. Worth the struggle, the striving...worth the path he will have walked to find me.