Looking inward, sometimes you see things you don't really like. Anger, jealousy, a lack of understanding or willingness to even try and understand. That's pretty much what I was faced with recently when I took a good long look at myself. I didn't like it very much. It made me feel somehow smaller, less evolved really. I mean, I was spending this amazing amount of time being angry at other people for my own predicament. I was letting jealousy turn me into someone I hardly recognized. I spent so much time demanding that my love understand me and my feelings, that I had no time left to try and understand hers. I didn't really want to understand, I just wanted her to conform to my idea of what a marriage, of what love was. In the midst of all of that, I almost lost the thing that meant the most to me in the world. Her.
You see, our relationship is complicated by the fact that neither of us is perfect. My wife is smart, sexy, caring, and full of life. But she's not perfect. I'm a decent human being myself, but by no means am I perfect. I had this ridiculous notion that we had to be perfect, and by making that demand on us both - a demand neither of us could live up to, I almost destroyed something amazing and beautiful.
I think I understand now, finally, what it means to love someone. To truly love someone. It's to recognize that the person you fell in love with is a collage of thoughts, emotions, fears, notions, and a past you can never really fully understand, because it wasn't yours to walk through. I look at my wife now, and realize that her smile, and her laugh, and her intelligence, and her fiery temper, and her mood swings, and her compassion for people and animals, and her deep thoughts and insane sense of humor are all things that drew me to her, made me fall in love with her, made me ask her to marry me, and have filled my life with meaning since that time. I also realize that her anxiety, and insecurities, her needs and wants and weakness'....those were always there as well. When I met her, when I fell in love, and when we married. All a part of the whole.
If you truly love someone, you have to learn to not only love a persons strengths and qualities that you show off in the light. You have to also accept and love their weakness' and imperfections, their darkness. Because one without the other, is not the person you met, fell in love with, and wanted to build a life with. It's not about settling, it's about celebrating the person you love as a whole.
I'm learning to celebrate myself as a whole, and in doing so, I've found new beauty in my wife, and in my life. We may not be perfect, as a matter of fact I can promise you we are not. But that's just it, we don't have to be. I just have to love her the best I can. That's what I have control over. My thoughts, my actions, how I treat her, and how I support and encourage her.
I give up control of those things that are not mine to control, and find peace and feel love in a whole new way. What a wonderful journey this life is.
No comments:
Post a Comment