There is so much to be said about love. Poets have written about it, lovers have been scorned by it and nations of people have been united and healed by it. Yet love is elusive, the definition we all connect to what it means is varied and rare. The complexities that come along with the weight of it can sometimes be stifling even when in the most truest form it should be freeing. We think love should be convenient, love should be an easy twisted pattern of words on a hallmark card to feed a longing in the human spirit that no one can truly put a finger on. Love in its most simplistic ways is a word, but love, is an action of the highest level of the soul. Love does not come with contingencies, it doesn't have expectation or hold with it a label that has a universal fit for all. Love can be confusing, difficult, epic, jolting, revealing, awakening and even painful. Love is four letters that we as humans have given to an emotion and depth we truly have no ability to explain.
Last week was a heavy one, I lost three people I knew unexpectedly all in a matter of 72 hrs.
So it got me thinking again about the importance of saying what needs to be said in the now. It also highlighted the immense power in tying things up the correct way when we can.
We wait on saying what needs to be said. We think we have forever, another day, another moment. That is until we don't. Sometimes we have people in our life that we left things unsettled with, we walked away without ever saying thank you for what you have been in my life despite whether or not they are good for us anymore. We leave things unsaid, people unappreciated and some people all together missed.
We forget that life can be fleeting and tomorrow is not a guarantee, yet still we wait. In this moment you have the power to do whatever it is you need to do to be at peace with people in your life now. This can truly save you from feelings of heartbreak and regret down the line.
We have all experienced it before, saying I love you to someone and we don't hear it back. Nothing hangs in the air with such stillness as those words I love you passing through our lips and hanging in the air like the stale smoke of an extinguished fire. I am not only speaking about the I love you we might say to a partner, but an I love you we may say to a parent or friend too. For some of you that one time can be enough to fear saying it again. For others it may be just the leap you need to get past the fear of silence and try again. Which one are you? How comfortable are you saying I love you to the people in your life that matter?
The regret of my life is that I have not said 'I love you' often enough. - Yoko Ono
On Independence Day this is my ode to the Nation that I adore. America you remain, still the gleaming beacon of hope to me and people the world over. You are not without soil, tears or pain and nothing beautiful enduring or strong is ever without those things.