Lovable

There was a lesson in Relief Society today in church and it was about love. I had my energetic baby boy going just crazy wanting to get into what he could and I was majorly distracted about 90% of the class. I finally was able to do a swap with D and go back into the class for the last maybe ten minutes of it with no cute baby distraction. I sat down and listened, but to my chagrin I found myself really trying to process my own reality when it comes to love rather than listening to what she was teaching. What does love really even mean to me? When did I fall into real love for the first time? With whom? What about love for friends? Even more questionably, strangers? What was my perception of love before joining the church? Who loves me and in what ways?

I have a nasty tendency of wanting to make comments during classes. I catch myself not listening so much as looking for an opportunity to insert my experiences or feelings. I have actually made a point of breaking this habit because I know that I have way more to learn than to teach and that if I just stop and listen, I can learn a lot. Buuuuuuutttttt, I still have my little relapses on occasion and that started happening today. I can’t hardly remember anything in the lesson because my mind spun off into my own little place trying to comb over all my experiences with love and how they pertained to the lesson. Luckily, I caught myself and kept my mouth shut, but it did get me thinking about some rather serious issues I have been skimming over for a long time.

Growing up, I was a rather cold friend. I could love you one minute and completely wash my hands of you the next, no explanations offered. I was disconnected somehow. As a small child, I felt like a 21 year old trapped in a child’s body so other children frustrated me and a lot of bullying toward me took place. As a result, my ability to connect to other children was always at face value. As I grew up, looking at little kids younger than myself didn’t make me think of how cute they were, I saw them as little piranha fish ready to go after the weakest thing in the playground. Little kids equaled cruelty in my mind. As I hit Junior High, I would rather have lost an arm than go through each new day. I hated the social atmosphere. I felt alone no matter what friends I had or how many. I knew it was all fair weather for them and for me. Love was not my forte to put it lightly, survival was.

Instead of loving people, I loved music. I loved the cello and I loved to sing. I felt safe and natural when I did those things. I loved being on the swim team. Swimming was another natural thing for me and although it was a team, it was an individual’s sort of team. I swam for me, not for anyone else and no one else was going to beat me down because I wasn’t good enough for them. It was just me, the coach, and the strokes in the water. Those loves were the ones I had as a child and preteen. High school was when the firestorm hit. I thought I loved everybody! I loved my friends, I loved boys, I loved all my extracurricular activities! I was just soooo in love! I felt like all the mean kids were too busy trying to find their own place in this bigger school with older kids in it, that they just didn’t have the time to torture me anymore. There were older boys to chase after and new friends to make. It was great!

Well, as that settled I went through about seven boyfriends from Freshman to Senior years. Some of them were utterly forgettable and some of them were utterly unforgettable. Friendships I also went through. Only two friends really and truly stood out against the rest. There was Sara and there was Kari. They are to this day the only two friends from high school that I seemed to be truly best friends with in a way were there was a real friendship level of love. How they broke through the callous around my heart, I doubt I will ever know, but they did and it was in those friendships that something started to come to life within me. It became possible to emotionally attach to another human being my own age. The thought had never even occurred to me before that.

Now, in regards to being in love, I thought I was five times before meeting D. I had the misconception that loving someone meant that you were more infatuated with them anything and that you should sacrifice being yourself or even being happy in order to receive the love back. This was especially so with one guy in specific and the damage that was done in the two years I spent with him is immeasurable. My heart had been bruised deeply and scars were left by the young age of 18 years old. At the end of this nightmare relationship was when I found the church. And that was when I got a taste of what real love felt like. I suddenly had a whole social clique that I belonged to, people were happy to see me and I was happy to see them too. There was a special sort of glow that I felt inside that I had never felt before. Almost like something warming from the inside outward and I knew that that feeling must be what everyone was talking about when they used the L word, not the hollow thing I had been mistaking it for.

By the time I met D, I had figured out love in the aspect of family, friends, and even religion, but I was utterly lost with men. I kept trying to find that love connection with the guys I was supposed to, but it just wasn't happening. So I tried with the guys I was NOT supposed to and that, too, was not a success. Thankfully, I figured out that I was just a lost child in regards to it and I gave up. That was when the real deal fell at my feet. It wasn't forced, it wasn't awkward, it wasn't formal. It was natural and effortless. It just fit as if it had always been there. I learned what it meant to be loved simply because I was me. I didn't have to be anything or anyone else and I was loved completely. Even more amazingly, I loved him back. As is. I knew I loved him as a human being immediately and it took no time to fall all the way into love with him. Just like music and swimming, it was just right and made me happy and comfortable in my skin.

I knew I wanted to have a baby as soon as we got married. He wanted one immediately as well. So our precious little girl joined our family one year and one month after we got married. I still remember the moment that I learned what it meant to love a child. I was sitting on our couch after feeding M shortly after bringing her home from the hospital. She fell asleep in my arms. She was in a little pink onesie with stripes and care bears on it. I sat there taking her in and I suddenly became overwhelmed with love for her and before I knew it, I was crying. For the first time in my life, I loved someone so much that the only thing I could do was cry. That moment changed me forever. Every time I saw a child, I didn't see a piranha, I saw someone’s baby. In fact, almost every person I saw was someone that I could relate something to that made them lovable. It was all so alien, but I enjoyed it so much.

In the present, I am still learning. It feels like a slippery slope. I have to ask myself if I am capable of actually trusting another person enough to love them. Due to my history of not being the biggest fan of being vulnerable, I am especially cautious when it pertains to loving other people. But that isn't what love is supposed to be about. God doesn't teach us to love the perfect because we would be alone forever. He teaches us to love one another. Period. To look at one another as a brother or sister. As God’s own children (yourself included). Since having my four, I understand a fraction of the intensity of love God feels for each of his children and it is astounding. I am working on learning the difference between trusting another person versus loving them. Trust is an earned privilege and in no way should be given to all while love is an essential piece of happiness for everyone. I don’t trust everyone I love, but I love them nonetheless and I know they love me too. Thankfully, I know that in God, I get the best of both worlds no matter what. And even better, I know he loves me back.  I guess my greatest question at the end of all this is if I ever really learned how to love me?