I met a man once, his name doesn’t so much matter, as who he was. He was beautifully made and so incredibly gorgeous—he had to be— he was Love. You could feel him from across the room and love poured out of his eyes like sunbeams.
Honestly, for me, it was kind of hard to look at him. The purity of his love was so intense. I was only able to look into his eyes once, and for less than a second really. He scared me. I was in a relationship and it felt wrong to me. Bad. It felt like I was doing something so awful—-breaking some rule just by being near him. Just being in the presence of his love—-without doing anything at all—felt so uncomfortable it just had to be wrong.
I can still see those blue sparkling eyes looking into me. I can still feel the love filling me. Even though I only looked for half a second and felt it over 8 years ago. It was real and it’s something I’ve never been able to unremember. Love walking around in the form of a body.
What kind of love was this you ask? Because we all know there are just so many kinds—-Sibling love and fatherly love. Friends kind of love and the falling-in-love-kind of love. The love of a 50 year marriage kind of love. A good book kind of love. The love of cheese. Love for the sun and moon. Love like you have for the mountains or the ocean. Love for the air you breathe.
Yes.
He was all of those. He was love—undefined.
We humans are always trying to define love. You supposedly love your partner different than you love your friends. You love your parents different than you love you children. Your love for books or tacos or a soft bed is different than your love for puppies, bunnies and babies. This is Love. Defined.
Often times we use love so casually. You say things like, “I love that dress.” “I love this car” “ I love that painting” —-even though you just saw all of these things while walking down the street two minutes ago.
What you don’t say is “I love you and you and you” to the people you see walking passed you on the side walk. Because…well….that would just be weird, right?
But that’s exactly what this man I met did. He met everyone with love. He was walking around as love (minus the actual words of saying it, though if you asked him, I’m sure he would have told you just that “I love you”. )
This undefined love made the people around him squirm. Some people hid from his love (that was me——it felt so good it had to be bad. What?! That doesn’t even make sense, but I digress). Some loved his love and followed him around hoping for more of it. Some had never felt it before. Some took it because they needed it. Some just sat in the purity of it. Some allowed themselves the joy of it. Some started secretly questioning their sexual orientation, maybe I’m gay? Maybe I’m not a lesbian after all? Some actually even left their relationships to find someone who might possibly have what he had and/or hoped he could love them alone. Oh yes this Love was causing all sorts of trouble inside us!
Because all we had ever experienced was defined love. And we were trying to make sense of his love, we were trying to wrap it up with a pretty bow and give it a name—like we do with most things we experience in life. We took his love and found a way to make it make sense for each one of us. And we did. For me, at that time, it was bad and irresponsible of him to be walking around confusing everyone like that. For others it was pure magic. For some it stirred up a desire for more. And others just simply ran from it.
What if we did less naming and defining and thinking about it all? What if we just allowed ourselves to sit in it? Not good or bad, not right or wrong. Just let it be what it is? The feeling of it?
Can you imagine sitting next to pure love? What would it feel like for you? What would you do with it? How would you be with it?
The me today would choose a very different experience. I would have asked him a question, “Tell me, how does it get any better than this?”
Copyright © 2020 Chelsey Fjeldheim, Courage Speaks Counseling
