Israel: Why Do You Love Me?
*I wrote this a while back when I was on the verge of losing my mind because of all the thoughts and doubts in my head. On an emotional level, I was living in a state of survival. I felt uptight and tense all the time and I was barely keeping it together. To the world none of that was apparent. I was functioning, maybe even too well. After a lot of hard work, I am not in that place anymore, which is why I guess I feel it is safe to share this now. Sure I still have my self doubts and difficulties, we all do, but these days I don’t feel like I’m living every day in survival mode.
Our lives are full of people. Unless we live like a hermit shut away from human interaction, we have no choice but to engage in human contact, both physical and verbal, numerous times on a daily basis. There are all kinds of people out there. There are those we like more, there are those we like less. There are people we despise or maybe we just think we do. And, because we are lucky there are also people whom we love.
Since I know there is someone in your life you love, I want you to close your eyes and take a moment to think about them. If you want, it can be someone you just like or admire not necessarily love. Have you pictured them well? Do you have a smile on your face?
Now comes the hard part. Why do you feel that way about them?
That question came out of my desire to understand why someone would love or like me. What is it about me or what I am doing that would cause someone to stop and say, hey I like her. And I don’t know if the answer that came to me is the truth and whether it my way of trying to explain away something that can’t be quantified and explained.
Simply put, I think people like/love/admire us for the things we do for them and for others. They like us because of the way we make them feel about themselves. Why do we love our children from the moment we set eyes on them after they’ve been born? Because just by being born they have done something for us. They have given us a new job, a new purpose, new meaning in our lives.
We all want to feel loved. We all want to have the security and comfort of knowing there is someone we can lean on. I’m saying we can’t be loved if we don’t love. We won’t have someone to lean on unless we are there for others. We all want to feel taken care of yet we won’t have that unless we take care of others.
Sometimes it feels like love is tiring. You have to do all the time. Love is work. And I wonder, if I stop, will I still be loved?
Would you still love me
If I had nothing left to give,
If I had no energy to take care of you
If I had nothing you really needed?
Would you still love me
If I didn’t feed you or clean up,
If I didn’t offer my help
If I didn’t seem to care?
Would you still love me
If my mind wasn’t quite as sharp
If I embarrassed you
With my confusion or bursts of anger?
Would you still love me
If my smile left my face forever
If my words went mute
And the music in my soul faded?
Would you still love me
Because of all I once was,
Even if now there was nothing recognizable
About the person sitting before you?
Would everything I have done until now
Be enough for you to still love me?
Love, the age old question
Pondered while hovering over the the precipice of self doubt.
I’m afraid to stop doing, to stop caring, to change the rules that have been golden up until now. I’m afraid to sway the balance of love and acceptance. I’m afraid if I do that I won’t be loved.
I yearn for unconditional love, to be able to give with truly no strings attached and to know that I am loved without having to do anything at all, just because I am a person who has a heart full of love. Is unconditional love just a fantasy residing in empty words or are we really capable of pure love? I wish I really knew.
What I do know, is that first of all I have to love myself, no strings attached. And when I feel like withdrawing, I need to love more.
Why do you think you love and are loved?
This is an original post by World Moms Blog Africa & Middle East Regional Editor, Susie Newday in Israel. You can also find her on her blog New Day New Lesson.
Photo credit to the author.