Falling in Love... Day One

I’m on a quest.  It’s the greatest quest of all. It’s one I’ve accomplished before, and one I know I can and will accomplish again.  I want to fall in love.  I want to be excited about life, thrilled about all the great possibilities that lay ahead for me every day.  I want to see the beauty in everything around me because I’m looking through eyes of beauty, eyes that know love, feel love, and exude love.  That can only happen if I’m filled with love.  So, I’m on a quest to fall in love again… with myself.

As much as chemistry is important, the major factor of falling in love is a state of heart and mind.  Opening our minds and hearts, or also closing them, to the concept and acceptance of love is the beginning of any relationship.  If we are empty of love, we cannot give what we do not possess.  We then become vampires, because we have a need inside, a hole desperate to be filled, so we seek love from others around us, sucking the life out of them to feed that need, only to discover after we’ve drained them dry, the hole is still there.  That’s the thing about holes…  unless their patched, bottoms sewn together, mended, or sealed, everything that goes into them, drains right out the other end.

I used to be so angry at vampires, because they’re so fucking selfish. They’re so self-centered, desperate, needy, they don’t consider the damage they do to their victims.  They just need the blood, the love, and so they take, and take, and take, like a junkie using everyone in their life to get their next fix. They don’t “mean” to hurt anyone, but their disease controls them. A vampire’s need for blood controls them. They use, manipulate, lie and suck those that possess any love dry of that love, and then discard them, push their empty shells out of their lives, and then move onto their next victim.  And most often, these demons don’t realize they’re the vampire, destroying all the relationships in their life. Most see themselves as the victim, and most often at one time they were by another vampire.

I don’t want to be a vampire. I could very well become one. I have a huge hole in my heart, and it’s been bleeding for a while now. I can feel it turning more and more into stone day by day. I was recently so in love, probably the most in love I’ve ever been in my life. The world wasn’t magically perfect, and all my dreams didn’t come true, and all my problems didn’t disappear. On the contrary, loving this man pushed me so far outside my comfort zone and magnified the difficulties this cruel world has to offer. He’s a mess. He’s complicated. He’s damaged. He came with a lot of baggage.  Yet, I would light up just to hear his voice, my stomach pitched with butterflies when I stared into his beautiful eyes, and the peace I felt when he held me calmed the deepest storms inside. He had nothing to offer me, and that meant nothing to me, because I had the greatest thing of all… love. He was my soulmate. I was so deeply, madly, crazy in love and that made me happy.  I didn’t just fall in love with him, but everything that came with him. I know he loved me too, because I felt it.

I still don’t understand what happened, and I suppose now it really doesn’t matter. I may never know or may never understand why I lost that love, but I can’t allow the loss of it to turn me into a vampire. I LOVE the woman I am. I have worked hard to become her, and she is the woman that I cannot lose, refuse to lose, and will fight to keep. 

So, here I am. One of the things I learned from all the marriage counseling and couples workshops I participated in trying to save my marriage, is that all relationships require constant work.  ALL relationships, and that includes the one I have with myself.  In essence, THAT relationship is the most important one of all. How I love myself is the key to loving other people, it effects EVERY relationship in my life.

So, to my first love, my deepest love, Tonya… I see you and I love you.  I love your unending hope. I love the way you see the best in people, look beyond their weaknesses and imagine their greatest potential. I love how you defend the defenseless, and go out of your way to put a smile on someone else’s face, especially when you’re crying inside and just want to die.  I love how you would give up your lunch money to make sure someone else didn’t go hungry.  I haven’t forgotten the time you gave away a dress you saved MONTHS to buy to a stranger. Or how you opened your home to a pregnant woman who had nowhere to go. Even in the darkest of times, you always fought to protect, to save, even knowing you would pay the greatest of prices.  I will never, never, never forget the sacrifice you made to save a little girl from the hell you lived.  No one else knew the price you paid, but I remember, and I love you for it.  No one ever tells you thank you, hell, they don’t even remember you, most don’t even know your real name. You gave your gifts, your talents, your love, your support, and everything you had without hesitation and no one cared. I do. I care. I know your deeds, and most of all I know your intentions, I know the motivations of your heart, and you are precious.  Those are the very words God said to you, “you are precious.” Never forget them.  

So, in my quest to fall in love again with myself, I am going to keep reminding myself of the person I am, and see the virtues that I believe make me beautiful, and I’m going to do this every day until I can fill that hole, ease that pain, and feel loved once more.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray