starting to get it....

he had gotten up to refill his drink, so he missed it when his son
turned to me in all sincerity and said 'i've learned a lot from watching you and dad.
i see love isn't all fun and games, and that it takes work, but if you
really want it you can make it work.'

i burst out laughing.

probably not the most nurturing reaction to his sincerity.
he laughed along with me tho, so it's not as bad as it sounds.

and when his dad sat back down, i repeated the 'love isn't all fun
and games' parts and laughed all over again.

ahhhh to be the example that love is work.
hmmmmm........that really makes me laugh.
i think i'd rather be the example that love is all fun and games.
oh well...

love has been a topic on my mind big time.
i'm watching my almost step son wandering around in that glorious
'falling in love' state, i've been watching a friend trying to figure out
her changing emotions daily thru her relationship, i've been watching
a friend with marriage problems, and i've been watching me in my own stuff.

yesterday, in a heart to heart with my guy, i noticed some 'self love'
issues floating about for me. well....more like slamming me in my face...
they were hard to miss.

and i keep going back to what m. scott peck says about love -
'the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own
or another's spiritual growth.'

as i typed a note late last nite to a friend struggling with love stuff,
i typed out some stuff i was learning. and it kinda tied up a lot
of the strings i had been watching and thinking about.

i think i really got snagged into the love deal that our culture builds in us
from the very start. the stuff that makes you think someone will fill
all your needs and you'll just be happy. there are so so so many deep
strings to that i'm still catching them here and there in my outlooks.

and then, of course, there's the stage where you hear women who've
been around say no man can fill all your needs and that's what
girlfriends are for. and while there's so much truth in what they say,
there's bitterness and some sense of loss or giving up that i've never
felt comfortable with.

that landing place...that place i feel like i can stand in with belief and
trust and the feeling of it being real and honest has always been a bit
elusive.

trying to change your way of thinking, trying to understand new ways,
trying to find real and honest...and not knowing what's what.....
i didn't even realize that's part of the shaky stuff i feel some times.

and what i think is happening is i'm finding that landing spot. i think
i'm starting to understand where all the work has been leading me to.
i think i'm starting to get what this love stuff is about. and i think i saw
it as i typed that note last nite....

it's not about someone filling all your needs.
it's not about them filling most of your needs and gathering the right
girlfriends to do the rest.
it's not about someone always seeing you and understanding you.
(that's a big one for me...)
it's not all about fun and games. (altho, that's definitely a bonus at times)

it's about caring about someone so much that you'll do work that
you'd never do any other way.
it's about exploring that work together and messing up and falling down
and feeling like you're stuck.
cause then you have to decide what to do with that.
it's about deciding what work to do, what work not to do, and knowing
that it's worth the work.
it's about the growth that happens thru this to both of you.
it's about  not only sharing the growth, but really being the growth together.
it's about learning to turn your focus off of them and onto you and what
you need to build stronger. it's about seeing the places where you don't
love yourself and you're looking for the other to do it for you, and realizing
that won't work. and it's about owning that, claiming that and changing that.

it's about realizing that you can lay a whole bunch of stuff on the other person
until they break, or you can pick up your own stuff and figure it out yourself
and become way stronger.

it's about learning to love all of the other person.
not just the stuff you like, but the stuff that seems to cause problems.
it's about learning to listen and hear and figure out with them why those things
seem to cause problems and then learning to see the person underneath all of that.
and loving that person and their woundedness and working together to heal.

it's about realizing that you're in this together and you can either act like it,
or not. but in acting like it, you start to really believe it. and in really believing it,
you start to change. you open doors to become more.

it's about becoming more.
that what it's about.

it's not about becoming comfortable and happy.
it's about becoming more and living in the glory of that.
cause it is a sort of 'glory.'
it doesn't come easy, you gotta give it all you got, but my gosh,
what you get........is glorious.

and when you know it's a process of becoming more, it changes everything.

i've sorta got it here in a glimpse.
just a glimpse i feel like i can hold for just a moment.
but i feel like it'll keep coming back stronger and stronger.
and i wanted to put it out here while i sorta had it.