In the examined state, love is simple. "I love you" is to grant you
space to be. And you are. Ergo I love you.
But love is almost always unexamined. That's when it blows me away.
That's when it sweeps me off my feet. That's when it brings
tears to my eyes just standing in the presence of it.
It's the unexamined state of love which gets me most
powerfully.
This is what goes on for me with "I love you" with a you
who is anyone other than you:
I love you, then immediately behind that, waiting in the wings to make
a dramatic entrance, is
I want to be with you
I want to be close to you
I want to be near you
I want to be around you
and, the more forthright, poignant, and simple
I want you
And all this without any assurance you'll recreate any
of it!
The deeper cause of why it's hard to stand in this unrequited space,
contrary to popular wisdom, isn't just because it's unrequited. That
much is obvious. It's also a cursory, naïve, trite
interpretation.
The more profound
interpretation
of why it's hard to stand in this space is because when I stand in I
love you, I'm standing
naked and defenseless in the
presence of who I really am.
That's an acutely open and vulnerable place to stand. It always
intrigues me when I notice what I call for when I stand in the space of
I love you. When I stand in the space of I love you
I call for you to come forth and be with me. How
intriguing to observe my purest love, my supposed free magnanimous
gift to you, in truth has strings attached. How interesting
I'm thrown to be this way. How very, very
interesting ...
We have the opportunity to simply stand in love, to just
be in this most sacred of all experiences a human being
can stand in. Yet when we stand in love, our thrown tendency is to call
on someone else to whom we ascribe the cause of I love
you. We just can't stand in love by ourselves. How interesting. How
very, very interesting ... How quickly "I love you"
morphs into the expectation you'll do or be something for
me or give me something. Then how quickly "I love you" morphs into an
unfulfilled
expectation.
That (or something like that) goes on for me with "I love you" with a
you who is anyone other than you. But it's not what goes
on for me with "I love you" with you.
This is what goes on for me with "I love you" with you:
When I love you, I get to stand
naked and defenseless in the
presence of who I really am.
All manipulations are cut off. If I don't cut them off myself, you cut
them off ... or you see to it they're cut off. Man! You
cut off my ability to manipulate - do you ever! ...
When I love you, it guarantees nothingexcept I love you. It promises nothing. It doesn't make
you closer (or further away, for that matter). It's simply I love you
because I love you.
When I love anyone other than you, I want that someone else, I want to
get that someone else. But when I love you I get me.
When I love anyone other than you, their loving me may or may not be in
question for me. But when I love you, there's no wavering, there's not
one scintilla of uncertainty that you love me. What's different about
you loving me, what's distinct when you love me over when anyone other
than you loves me, is you love me always, unconditionally, forever, no
matter who or how I'm being whether or not I love you.
That's why everyone loves you. I know when they love you, all
manipulations are cut off. I know if they don't cut them off, you will.
I know when they love you, it guarantees nothingexcept they love you. It promises nothing.
Arguably, that's what makes them love you even more. Arguably, that's
what makes them want for more from you than simply knowing you love
them. Arguably, that's why they won't get everything they want from
you. Arguably, if they don't get everything they want from you, they'll
be in an unrequited space around you.
I say:
so what?!
Join the club. And consider it to be a
privilege.