starting over....

she was telling me about something she had done.
it was incredibly courageous and loving.
she tried to downplay it, but i know her well
enough to know what a big deal it was.

and i know that she set herself up to be hurt,
but she was okay with that. she felt it was
better to reach out.

i thought of my own stuff that was similar to
hers. and how i just didn't want to do what
she did.

she was acting out of love. how come i didn't want to?

i don't know....
maybe it's all more complicated than that.
maybe there's lots of ways to act out of love and
i've been trying hard to do that.

maybe i just don't want to get hurt anymore.

maybe i just don't want certain things anymore.

all this and more had me thinking about love as i
wandered around this morning.

i say i want to be love.
i say i want every action to be love.

and yet, this morning, unless it's really easy love,
i really want to be left alone.

and i know....that's not being love.

i glanced at a couple of books on loving yesterday
by thich nhat hanh and i saw enough to understand that
to truly love like i want to means some major effort
on my part.

it kind of discouraged me.
like i'll never get it.

i knew that.
i knew i'd never get it the way i wanted.
so why does that thought feel different this morning?

i don't know.

maybe cause i at least thought it would be getting easier
by now?

and it doesn't feel any easier.
maybe that's why....

maybe somehow i thought love would make everything all okay.

yeah.
yeah.
that'd be it.

and it doesn't.

that's the thing with the really hard love stuff......
that's when it's the most challenging....is when stuff really
doesn't feel okay, you keep doin' it anyway, and it still
doesn't feel okay.

that's the whole point, ter.

yeah.

i just have trouble with that part.

so what i have learned along the way, is that when i feel
this way, where i start is with myself.

showing myself compassion and understanding with where i'm at.
and then go from there....

it's a start.
which is good.
cause i felt like quitting.
but if i do the compassion and understanding thing with myself,
i'm just starting one more time.

which is a good thing.