The difficulty of love.

A lot of my meditation and devotional time lately has been focused on love. I've had more than one conversation about love being a hard thing to live, and a hard thing to let yourself feel.
But as I meditate and read, what has struck me most is this - it is NOT hard to love. It is not hard to feel love for another person.

I look at my children, and it's an overwhelming thing at times - seeing them grow and being amazed at the people they are becoming, and feeling responsible to help them grow into their strong own selves. What a gift they are. Loving them is easy even though the WORK involved in seeing them to adulthood will not always be fun. (I am actively suppressing the memory of a lap full of cold cereal this past week.)

I see my parents - the love they have for each other, the love they have for their children, grandchildren, and extended family and friends. I know I love them too - and that love has changed over time as I've grown and matured. That love has been a constant of my life - giving me the strength and resilience I didn't know I'd need.

So why do we think it is hard to love? It's an inherent desire of humans to love, and to seek love, and to be loved.

It's hard because we don't always think we are worth loving. Because it is hard to love someone who hurts you without thinking. It is hard to let someone else love you when you feel like the meanest, most awful person on the planet. It is hard to let yourself be vulnerable enough and open enough to be hurt. So we want love, but we don't always want to do the work within ourselves to let love be easy.

We sublimate, pushing that desire for love into things like hobbies, or employment, or food, or sleep, or sex, or drugs. Trying to justify it to ourselves, or make it look good for other people. It is easier to think you are doing something that will make it easier for someone to love you because you're good at work, or good at sewing, or you work out everyday.

Love is not hard. Letting people love you for your true self is what is hard - because it demands that you be your true self. None of this is new thought. Other people have said it more eloquently. It's just wisdom that I am learning slowly to get better at being my true self.