Just for a Moment

For a moment I forgot the rules. I forgot that love is something that is no longer to be felt or exist between us.

I forgot that should we feel love for one another, it is not to be admitted.

We no longer love one another publicly or privately.

The love once felt, still felt, is no longer allowed to exist. Like smoke in the wind, that love is supposed to dissipate into… nothing.

For a moment, for just a moment, I believed in love – timeless love.

For that moment, I relaxed and allowed myself to feel the love.

I smiled and laughed and felt the warmth of the love shared and within.

Then I remembered the rules.

Then I remembered that such moments aren’t to exist for you or for me as we are no longer allowed to love.

My heart wept; my smile faded; my spirit trembled.

The rules ask love to disappear.

The rules ask that it not be felt, acknowledged, or recognized.

What happens to love under such rules?

What happens to a spirit when love is repressed or denied or hidden? What happens to a spirit when we are asked to repress love by another? When we choose to deny our love for the sake of another?

Does love ever recognize the rules?

How can I live with rules that ask love to be hidden or denied?

Love is light. It is warm and inviting. It is something I have been working hard to repress in order to live under rules established by another.

My spirit aches to express itself. Isn’t life too short and love to precious to keep hidden behind walls.

The belief is that love unrecognized, unexpressed, and unacknowledged will cease, at some point, to exist. The rules are in place to make that happen – to deny love its place; to make it disappear.

I wonder if love works like that?

I wonder if denying love and hiding it is similar to denying a plant water and sunlight? Without the water and the light, the plant will die. Without recognition or acknowledgement, will love die as well?

For a moment, as the fireworks lit the night sky and my daughter laughed and thrilled in the moment, I forgot the rules. I forgot that the love I feel is being denied. Rather, for a moment, I let myself feel the love in every inch of my being.

For a moment, love lit the night sky and burst into dramatic, shimmering, vivid color. My spirit soared with the delight of the moment and the light burning strong within me.

Just for a moment…