Learning Deep Love Over Time *Abstract post follows*

“The Patience to Learn Deep Love over Time” is the last of the themes that Mama Llama, T, and I set out to ponder upon two weeks ago. It is the theme for this week. Having read some of Teri’s thoughts on love, I asked her to join us (along with Liz and David, and Just Run? And anyone else who would like) to have a glass of wine and opine on this topic.

Learning deep love requires patience. It asks that we accept the challenges, ride the rough road, and adapt accordingly. It is part of the mountain we climb; part of that path we travel. Deep love requires us to see and accept another and it asks that we fully accept ourselves.

When I realized that this topic was next, I found myself excited. This is about love – it should be easy to write. It is only now that I have attempted to write it three or four times that I find it much more challenging than the others.

I am just 38 years old. In those 38 years, I have experienced love of various forms. At some level, I felt it important to experience life myself, on my own, before inviting someone into my life to share it. I couldn’t give myself until I knew what I had to give.

I don’t pretend to be much closer to that than I was in college. Sure, I know myself better than I did then but… and this is huge… I am not the same person I was then! As my life has evolved, my ability to give and love has unfolded. I am more able to accept others and offer myself to them without expectations or requirements.

Having the patience to learn and experience deep love starts within. If I can give that to myself, than I can give it to another; if I can give it to myself, I can accept it from another.

And all of that takes time and patience. It doesn’t happen over night. It has set backs. There are times when I am far from giving it to myself – though they are brief they are there. Sometimes there are set backs in the sense that I have to take time, take a deep breath, get it out o fumy system, and begin again. Again, they don’t happen often, but they happen.

That is part of the journey. Each set back, each challenge, each struggle, all of them are part of the patience required to learn deep love.

Being only 38, I know that I have a long way to go. There is much to experience on my own and more to experience as a woman and a mother. Sometimes I am amazed at how far I have come – and how far there is yet to travel. So much to learn and experience.

As I learn, I teach (or the other way around – as I teach, I learn). Not only to I continue to work to experience life and love in my life, but I attempt to show my daughter the differences between looking at something with love and looking at it without. We work on accepting people for who they are – expecting them to be nothing more or less. When she asks “How do you see me” I am stumped but respond with “How do you see you” because she needs to work with self identification over allowing society, her friends, or me to define her. Above all, we talk about love – that unconditional gift that is giving so naturally between the two of us but that we can share with others. Although my daughter doesn’t have a great deal of patience, I do hope that she has it when it comes to love.

I hope that I can teach her that love is gray over black and white. That it is something given without condition or expectation. That it accepts people for whom they are, not asking them to change but supporting their growth. And I hope that I can teach her that love endures. It is a choice that we continually make. The choice to love; to understand that over time and with patience love gives, enriches, and deepens.