Love is action and presence

3 years ago I knew very little about love. That's not to say I didn't experience it, from friends and family members but I didn’t understand how to love myself, therefore I couldn’t possibly have truly loved another, and I did not feel worthy of being loved. I may have thought I had an idea, and I loved my friends and family as best as I could, but as I come up on my 3 year anniversary of sobriety, a time of true reflection, the most impactful and the most beautiful gifts of my life have been my relationships. 

For me, life is about relationships, connections, love. Love is the only thing that matters.  My friends and my family fuel my heart. My whole heart. I surround myself with people today who inspire me to BE ME and help me to see that that is enough. Those are the ONLY kinds of people I spend time with. I have the most amazing friends and family members I could have possibly asked for – and every day I wake up wondering if I will meet someone new, consistently longing for connection with others, to learn about others and right now to be a part of a movement in shifting the world to heart centered living and heart centered connection because it just truly is all there is. 

Recently I have really embraced impermanence. Life is happening in moments, in days, one at a time. Yesterday is gone and who knows what’s going to happen tomorrow. I have embraced uncertainty so much that I crave it, the wonder and the excitement of the unknown and I am open to receiving whatever the spirit of the universe has planned for me. It’s so exciting that I have no idea what will happen. I don’t try to confine myself to anything, NO RULES, I don’t try to attach to anything because nothing lasts forever. What matters is how I FEEL in my heart and how I connect. What matters to me is WHO matters to me. All of the people that are going to show up for me on Sunday morning when I get my medallion. All of the people who taught me about love. Love is action and presence. 

Action. When you love someone, you DO things for them. We live in a world right now where “I love you” is thrown around, it’s become so casual that we’ve forgotten what it means. Love is action – when I look around at the people in my life I don’t have to question whether I am loved because they SHOW ME.  How? They pick up the phone when I call. They come to movies with me even though they may not want to. They stay up all night when I’ve just had a break up and I’m crying my eyes out even though they have to wake up the next morning for work. They buy me cards on my birthday and on Christmas, they take me to the grocery store because I don’t have a car, they remember my anniversary/birthday without me telling them, they pick me up from the airport, they sometimes drive 3+ hours to come pick me up after I’ve had a bad night, they come to meetings when I am speaking, they listen when I speak, and they do these things for me without expecting something in return. We don’t DO things for people expecting something in return and then call it love. You don’t expect love, you give love, and you love someone so much that it actually brings you joy to DO things for them. It’s not just buying gifts, it’s tricky there, but for me everything that motivates me in my life right now is love. That I’m happy when my friends are happy, I’m happy when you’re happy, and I would do anything for you. That’s just it. I would do anything for my friends. 

Presence.

Presence is an action in and of itself. Don’t freaken tell me you love me and then sit down at dinner with me and be on the phone/texting. Don’t tell me you love me and never call me. Don't tell me you love me and not make time for me. Time. Your time is your life. The greatest gift you can give someone is your time. As someone who FEELS everything and often stumbles on words (I’m not kidding, my coach keeps making fun of me, it’s hard for me to be in my head!) just saying  I love you, saying you are important to me means nothing. We must prove that relationships are important to us. Relationships take time and effort and the best way to spell love is TIME. The essence of love is not what we think or do provide for others, but how much we give of ourselves. Authenticity is my core value. My number one. It is essentially the only way I can connect right now—honesty and truth. It’s the only true connection, the one that comes from the heart. This is when words matter – when you tell the truth, when you truly reveal to someone how much they mean to you. When you truly reveal YOURSELF to another. I meet someone’s ego right now and it’s like hitting a wall, I feel nothing! And I don’t do well when I feel nothing. I sometimes say “come on, give me something!” Meaning giving me YOU. What are you doing hiding in there? I want YOU. I want your eyes, your time, your attention, your focus, your heart. Focused attention. Love concentrates so intently on another that you forget yourself in that moment. Attention says “I value you enough to give you my most precious asset-my time." Time is the only thing we can't get MORE of, we have a set amount. What we do with our time MATTERS. Not only giving our time to others, but to ourselves! If we love ourselves we make time for OURSELVES in addition to the people we love. Love means yielding my presences, comfort, goals, security, money, energy or time for the benefit of someone else. My friends do that for me. I learned about love through people who gave me their time over the past 3 years. Who spent TIME with me when I was struggling the most, who spent hours on the phone with me, long Saturday afternoons and evenings, who looked me in the eye when I was speaking, who helped me to feel like I mattered, helped me to feel like I was not alone, held the space for me to be imperfect, to be vulnerable, to be real. I learned about self love through making time for myself to work out, meditate, journal, read, sleep. Relationships are the only thing that matters. What’s going to happen on Sunday? My friends are going to show up. And I have never, ever in my life felt more loved than I do right now. 

This is dedicated to all of my friends and my family. For your eyes, for your heart, for your focused attention, for your time. For helping me to see that I’m worth it, that I am deserving, that I am enough. When I am around you I feel unstoppable, I feel beautiful, I feel inspired, I feel powerful, I feel like my heart is bursting out of my chest and that I could run around the world with all of the energy you provide me with. I feel like I could fly. I feel loved.