True Love Manifested

The little girl in me experienced true love at a very young age. I had an old neighbor next door to my hut. He would work in his yard, and I would follow him everywhere. I would climb the trees on his property and ate their fruits. I would pick flowers and put them in my hair. He just let me be...Wild and free. He was God’s true love manifested in a person. He gave me protection from my dad’s PTSD episodes. Anyone that looked upon his toothless and wrinkled face won’t see the same beautiful man I see.

The experiences of love over our lifetime touch us in the deepest parts of our soul, from the comforting arms of our mothers to the unconditional love of our fathers. For most, if not all of us, this experience isn’t perfect. It can be a source of pain, myself included. God is so merciful that He gives us His love from other sources in our lives. The two parental people are not the only ones that can provide this. Little pieces are put together to make a whole. Not perfect, but whole.

This most formative experience in my life, the love of an old neighbor. Showed me true love. I felt this deep hole in myself the day I saw a hearse in his front yard. That was the day I knew I lost my true love. I could not process the magnitude of this loss until the end of my marriage last year. The emotions are a mix of loss, longing, pain, fear, and joy in a cocktail of heartache consumed alone. Every heartache, future, and past will bring me here to the ocean floor of my being, where pain and joy will make my soul quake.

The beauty of this lesson that I want to share with you is this. You can find true love over and over again. It is not stagnant and a once-in-a-lifetime event. It is only the beginning. When someone comes into your life and provides the space for you to be as you are. You can be free and wild to discover the depths of your soul; you will feel a tremble. This is true love because true love is not given but a discovery of your own being. Have courage and do the work. Be vulnerable. Take the risk. Be you. 

Image: Claude Monet - The Artist's House at Argenteuil, 1873