Matreshka

What does it mean to love someone? I was talking to my mom on Thursday, after a week of meltdown after emotional meltdown, and she said something like 'loving someone means accepting them and loving them with their faults, because we've all got them.' Nobody is perfect and the real test comes when you can point out someone's faults and love the person as much in spite of them.

I'm not playing martyr here, but I think what my mom said is true. We don't love people because they are perfect. We love them because they are constantly surprising, complex beings. Like mathreshka dolls, holding layer upon layer of complexity, to be revealed in time, or perhaps never. This is what I struggle with the most. I think that P is somehow shut tight like a safe I'll never had the combination to open. But when my head is clear, and I open myself to him, he is actually open and receptive, in his own way. People are in different places in life, and we can't not love them because they're not at the same mental place as you. If I feel like I'm working on myself, on my confidence, on my fear, on my anger, I'm not doing it to inspire him, or to get him to open up, or to get him to look deep down inside, I'm doing it because there are certain things I need to do for my self (and my sanity). My journey is not tied to his, perhaps only parallel, if that.

What got me thinking about all of this was my mom's comment, but also, the question: do I feel like P will still love me despite all my emotional breakdowns? my irrational mind? my inability to express what's going on when I ask him to listen? I think the answer is yes. The trouble is, I go around walking on eggshells a little bit, but that's my own problem. My own fear of being myself around him is mostly my own thing, because it is based in so many things that precede his presence.

I've started reading a book my old friend Jol suggested I read. It's called 'Shambahla: The sacred path of the warrior' and it's totally uplifting. It's all about basic goodness. I need to see and understand and feel my own goodness, I know it's in there, hidden under a pile of insecurities.

I've never worked harder in my life.