Love is a Tango by Catrin Welz-Stein
“Something amazing happens when we surrender and just love. We melt into another world, a realm of power already within us. The world changes when we change. The world softens when we soften. The world loves us when we choose to love the world.”― Marianne Williamson
Choose Love.
One of the best lessons I’ve ever learned about love is to just let go, to let it take you.
You can try to outrun the longings of your own soul, but eventually you will need to turn and face the possibility that everything in life is about love.
There is nothing else. Just love.
And if you do not allow the jaws of life to rip open your chest and do surgery on your small heart, enlarging it and stretching it beyond what you think is possible, you will miss out on the tastiest, most juicy parts of life. You will plan the most wonderful party and forget to go. You will arrive just in time to clean up the mess and take out the trash.
The fact of the matter is, you will be half the person you were meant to be, if you don’t surrender yourself to love.
But.
It hurts.
It scares me. It reveals parts of me I don’t want anyone to see.
But.
It calls me out in my smallest moments.
It requires that I stand for something. It means I must step up and walk my talk.
But.
I am uncertain I want to be that vulnerable, that raw, that tender.
What if I give my heart to you and you hand it back to me, without comment.
Or worse, you look me over and say, “No thanks.”
What if I let this great rush of water take me, and I land on your doorstep, muddied, with sticks in my hair and half my clothes washed off?
What if you take one look at that hot mess and think, damn, I could do better than that.
But.
What if you don’t?
What if you take one look and say, “It’s you. Migod. You’re here. You’re finally here.”
***
What I know about love.
It’s the honeyed-water of life.
It makes everything softer, lighter, and more open.
I also know it takes a courageous heart to even attempt to walk into its currents. It’s not for the faint-hearted or lily-livered or for those who like remaining stuck inside the life raft, wearing their orange vests.
If you open to love, you’ll get wet. If you dive in, you’ll be soaked.
Love is messy; that’s what makes it a cake you want to bake.
Love is thumping your head against the wall and waking your neighbors and starting all the nearby dogs barking. Love is bumping and grinding and falling apart afterward and thinking, God damn! What was that?
Who left my hair matted and my heart pumping and my toes curled?
Oh, yes.
You, love. You.
***
Walking Away by Gabriela Insuratelu
Love is also quiet. Angry. Bored. Spiteful.
Love can be a troublesome little f*ck.
Often, it will stand on your last nerve, just for shits and giggles.
It will ask you for more than you ever thought you could possibly give.
Love is the ultimate self-improvement course. It is continuing-ed and life-long learning rolled into one. It is trial by fire and poop patrol and ‘I-can’t-believe-I-have-to-do-this’ spiritual practice.
Love is sacred surrender.
Love will shape you into a vessel that can withstand anything.
No matter how difficult your journey toward love is, it is something you do not want to miss.
It will forge a version of you that you could never become without it.
Risk it.
Risk your heart.
Risk everything and be glad.
© 2014 Shavawn M. Berry All rights reserved
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