Happy Tuesday, truly a two’s day 2/22/22
I’m just a little bit jealous of anyone born on this day, getting married or really anything else with a celebration in print. If only I was able to renew my drivers license today to have all those 2’s on something legit.
Two, Dois, Due, Duex, Duo, Elua, Twee, Tva, Zwei, =, ll
It’s how much in cents your personal opinion is worth. When children figure out they have a will of their own. The max amount of notches we feel are acceptable to take someone down.
And shit’s numerical name.
But then there is pair, couple, duet and two of a kind…
I’ve been living on an Island for 2 years now. 4,252 miles from my previous residence. 2 thousand of those miles being vast open ocean.
I’ve lived on an Island many times before throughout my life but this time around was an entirely fresh adventure. Perhaps part of it was age and the changing of one’s priorities. Perhaps it was a pandemic that plagued me with the virus not once but twice! The sickest I’ve ever been, the worst I’ve ever felt and the most scared I’ve ever been…and yet…I’d go through it again to know the other year and a half of experiences and the river of hope that continues to supply my days.
The beauty and strength of gentleness, the quiet peace of patience, the unmovable trust of faith and filled to overflowing of the greatest of these, Love.
I experienced Love at 38 years old. Sure I’d said it lots of times before then but it was the knowledge of Love, the longing for it that uttered those words. I’d heard throughout my life “well, there are different kinds of Love”. I come out of agreement with that. It lets you justify there are levels of love which introduces confusion…is this love? I love chocolate and I love my grandmother are surely not the same love? There’s Love and there’s not love. Almost love is still not love. ‘Kind of’ is ‘sort of’ and still not love.
My previous installments of ‘sort of’ Love in hindsight (20/20) was more akin to caring, duty, and again longing for it. It was a matter of principles or loyalty to the fact that, well I said it so I can’t take it back, rather than anything true and selfless. I knew it existed despite my continuous failed attempts.
I tried pretending, considering myself an expert in the world of make believe, having spent so much of my life there. It’s a nice place to visit, until I realized it’s main exports are distraction and escape. Shouldn’t I be enjoying the living while I’m still living? Pretend love is, you guessed it, also not love.
This post took a turn I was not expecting. Sometimes when I don’t know what to write about, I begin typing enthusiastically and see what springs forth.
I was listening to love songs today (Particularly Eva Cassidy, John Denver, Both Elvis’s: The and Costello). Not songs of loss like most love songs are, but songs of loving. Songs that before my experience of love didn’t get past the first layer.
Now the experience is something else entirely that I am still surprised by and can't quite articulate yet.
While various emotions and human experiences may fill you up for a time, love fills to overflowing. Love flows through you from a higher place that is infinite. It pours out your heart, your pores, your eyes, your mouth and extends to cover everyone around you. You want to improve the lives of anyone breathing, even the jerks. You suddenly understand why people have babies and even, more than one baby. Because it’s so enormous and glorious, you are compelled to share it. And it's the only thing that actually gets bigger when you give it away.
I was not an A student when it came to the essay. I vaguely remember it was the conclusion that my professor could never find. Well, it’s because nothing is ever concluded!
This is ongoing, there is no conclusion. =)
But I will end with this hope I have for you the reader.
I hope you were encouraged. Please know the experience far surpasses the knowledge.
Early to late bloomers alike find Love to always be right on time. I hope for you the filled to overflowing experience of love.
Dear ones, let us not love merely in theory, with word or with tongue [giving lip service to compassion], but in action and in truth, in practice and in sincerity, because practical acts of love are more than words.
Colossians 3:14
Beyond all these things put on and wrap yourselves in unselfish love, which is the perfect bond of unity for everything is bound together in agreement when each one seeks the best for others.
1 Corinthians 16:14
Let everything you do be done in love.
I want to be spilled out, I want to be spilled out
I want to go all out in my love for you
Beau Maddox “Keep My Heart Tender”
