I am LOVE

I’ve avoided writing this post all month, but here I am on February 28th, the day before March begins, and my time has run out. No more lallygagging, dillydallying, procrastinating or putting it off for me. Unless I can find one more metaphor for wasting time… google says: fiddling around. No more fiddling around for me. Most of my life I’ve considered myself lazy, but one day Jason lovingly pointed out to me that perhaps I just work best on a deadline. His reframe of my lifelong pattern was so freeing! But… here I am… and it’s deadline day.

I have drunk the last sip of my chai, done a gentle practice, checked Facebook, browsed the depressing and absurd news headlines, filed for my 2023 business license and taxes, created all of April’s zoom links, and now I’m staring at my reflection in my desktop computer while I write on my laptop. 

Why is it so hard for me to write about this month’s I am? 

I am LOVE. 

Sigh… 

There are a few ways one can interpret March’s I am. Is it that I am loved, or I am lovable, or even that I am loving. All three of those can be directed outwards, and of course, inwards as well. And I guess as I think about it doesn’t really matter, as they’re basically all the same. It all comes back to love. And love is simultaneously the easiest and hardest concept/emotion there is. 

Has anyone ever asked you why you love someone? Have you ever been able to successfully answer? I certainly have not. Sometime I look over at Jason, as he’s quietly reading a book before bed, and I am so overcome with love for him that I honestly don’t know what to do with myself. The emotion is so overwhelming, yet I cannot define it. Yes, I can rattle off the qualities that make Jason so lovable; but those are qualities, many of which if he didn’t posses, I would probably still love him. He also has habits or tendencies that annoy me, and I have zero doubt that the same goes for him when it comes to me. Would I be able to better define my love for him if he didn’t leave his dirty socks on top of the washing machine when he got home from work? No. Would I love him more if he put his socks in the laundry basket instead? No, not really. I might find myself a bit less annoyed, but less annoyed does not equal love.

Love is undefinable. 

Roses are grown and given, poems are written, songs are sung, movies are made, all in the name of love. It’s the thing we spend our whole lives seeking. 

I had my first crush when I was five years old. Jason Fillette from church, who by the way was much older than me. Was it love? No, of course not. It was a crush, and if you’ve never thought about it before, a crush is so aptly named because it will, eventually, crush you. Now I’m quite sure that Jason Fillette was a kind young man, his mother was our pastor after all, but no doubt I was crushed by the fact that this boy, who might have been a whole ten years older than me, did not return my affections. In hindsight, let’s be extremely grateful that he didn’t! But little me was not grateful, she was sad, and she wondered why he didn’t like her. And each subsequent time she was crushed, she kept wondering the same thing. Why? What’s wrong with me that makes unlovable? 

Now, my family and friends would say that there’s nothing wrong with me, and I would have, and still do, say the same to others who ponder this question. You’re perfect. You’re whole. You’re enough. No matter what, little Katydid, you are lovable. 

But sometimes, I don’t believe it. Just like I struggle with the idea that I am ENOUGH. I think the two are intrinsically linked. If I don’t believe that I am enough, then it’s going to be challenging to believe that I am lovable. 

And if it’s challenging for me to believe, then I’m going to have a hard time receiving and accepting love, which in turn, leads other’s to feel rejected by me because they interpret my inability to receive their love as me not wanting their love, and then they may begin to believe that they are unlovable, and, well, you see where this run-on sentence is going. We find ourselves in a lack of love spiral that carries us down and down until we have been thoroughly crushed to pieces. 

Ooofff. 

I turned 44 on Monday, and I’ve been thinking a lot about my life, and where I am along this winding path. Not to be morbid, but there’s a chance that I’m halfway through this earthly adventure, and I’m starting to think about how much time I’ve wasted being unloving and unkind to myself. I know I’ve spent a lot of time and effort these last four decades looking for love and attempting to make myself more lovable, but I’m beginning to realize that I have put very little time and effort into actually loving myself. 

That stops now, my friends. I’m determined to fall madly in love with myself over the next year. 

I love to read, so I decided to turn to a few books to help me kickstart this new self love era I’m entering. It was Louise Hay’s book, You Can Heal Your Life, that helped me to begin to turn things around so long ago, so I’m turning back to her wise words, not only by re-reading the book, but also by diving into her, Love Yourself, Heal Your Life workbook. I also snagged some other goodies from the bookstore and library, which I plan to share throughout March if they prove fruitful. Fingers crossed! 

By now you know that I definitely don’t have all the answers. I think sometimes people assume Yoga teachers are super zen and that we have it all figured out. Ha! This is the blind leading the blind here, my friends. But my hope is that maybe my vulnerability and sometimes awkward honesty will inspire you to explore your own inner landscape as well. If you feel like delving into the idea of loving yourself more, start small. Maybe by smiling at yourself in the mirror, even when all you notice is those wrinkles, or that broccoli in your teeth that has been there since lunch.  After all, you, more than anyone in your life, deserves your own love.

Fingers crossed!