Wednesday, May 6, 2015

The Trouble With Love

Every love is as unique and unrepeatable as the person it is given to.
Heartbreak has been on my mind a lot lately because of a few friends who I care very deeply about and their recent life experiences. This is dedicated to them.

The trouble with love is that you can never repeat it. Tell someone that there are plenty of fish in the sea and expect to receive nothing but tears, ice-cold glares that could kill, or both. It's not a comforting response because they know that love isn't a little award that they can hold auditions for, passing on the trophy of their heart to whoever performs the best at the time. It's not an emotion they can just turn on and off, or grow out of, or experience in phases. Love is unscientific, and we can't and shouldn't take it lightly, or expect to be able to solve or cure it. Love is a choice, a choice that has already been made. And true love (or unconditional love) is an irreversible choice. It's one I would never criticize anyone for making. Maybe you think the dreaded ex was unworthy of a love that deep or powerful. I might agree with you. But I think I'm unworthy of it too. No one truly deserves to be loved entirely just as they are with all their flaws. The beauty of love is that it is given in spite of the fact that we don't deserve it. That's why trust and love are so closely connected. When someone loves you, you can be your imperfect self because they're not about keeping score and making you earn it. They just do it.

And if somebody really loves you like that, I don't think they ever stop.

But they might stop belonging with you. Breakups happen, friends move away or lose touch, people die. Sometimes we understand the reasons and sometimes we don't. Either way, we usually don't care. None of the reasons seem as important as that irreversible love we decided to risk for that person. It's too late to go back so excuses don't help. Nobody is more stubborn than a person with a broken heart. Everything looks empty compared to the love they lost. All possible alternatives whether present or future dull in comparison. They simply don't want to stop loving the person they love. And frankly, I don't think they should.

No, I'm not saying it's healthy to live in the past. I'm not saying "get over it" isn't valid advice. But I think we need to acknowledge that it's ok to keep loving somebody after you lose them, because love is not a limited resource. It is not possible to run out of love. When we love people, we don't go around tearing off little pieces of our hearts and handing them to others  until we just run out. The idea is so absurd (although unfortunately rather popular). No, once you love someone you realize that love is more specialized than that. It's something you build and learn together, a permanent monument that you can look back on for the rest of your life. And you never build the exact same thing twice. And that's ok.

One of my friends said it best when he told me "I have too much love to give to just one person." I think that's beautiful, and true of all of us.  We aren't diminished when we increase our love. No, love makes us grow, and love multiplies itself. I've had a couple of friends think, and sort of tell me, that they could never love again. I felt that loss and pain with them. But looking back, I smile because I realize they were proving themselves wrong with those seemingly hopeless conversations. They were loving again; loving me, building our friendships by sharing those dark experiences and trusting me to be there for them. "That's different," you say. Precisely. Of course it's different. And every other love they ever find from now on will be different. That's a good thing. Different loves mean different lessons, different discoveries, different adventures. It means that it's possible for us to grow and change and heal as people.  I wouldn't want the same love over again every time. It would ruin the specialness of those loves from my past that I still treasure even if I didn't get to stay with those people. And it would ruin the excitement and newness of my delightfully unpredictable future. Because love is new and different every time, I can believe that someday I will be a better person than I can imagine right now.

Besides, there is no need to threaten that which does not threaten you. Continuing to love someone you lost will never hurt your future because love is non-transferable. It can not be stolen, just as people can not be replaced.  Attention may come and go from one person to the next, but love is steadfast. It can't be corrupted like the emotions that we sometimes confuse with it. It endures all things.  And when the time comes to love again, how much better it is to look back and say you still want the best for those in your past, rather than trying to manufacture bitterness towards them.  No, moving on is not forgetting, or reaching a point where you don't care anymore.  Moving on is when you realize the best way to love someone is to want their freedom and their happiness, even if you can't be with them while they taste it.  So in a sense, letting go of someone is the final proof of your love for them.  It's not an easy test to pass, but it's an important one.

Real love takes sacrifice.  It's hard to find and impossible to repeat.  It can be extremely painful.  And yet somehow, I believe it's worth every bit of the trouble.

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Confessions of a Catholic College Student

My dear readers,

I am not ok.  
I am weak.
I am imperfect.
And, I can't fix it.

I guess you could say I'm failing.  Because despite the above average GPA, the volunteering, the blog, (which has surpassed the 1,300 pageview milestone!)  and the smiles for everyone that are so natural they've become my default,  I have realized that Westley from The Princess Bride was right: "Life is pain, Highness.  Anyone who says differently is selling something."  Well...maybe that's the melancholic in me talking, but there are days when I agree with the Man in Black wholeheartedly.  There are so many people around me hurting, and as hard as try, I am less than enough to heal them.  Maybe that's because I haven't healed myself or fixed my own messes:  the cowardice, the impatience, the laziness...and to top it all off, the perfectionism. The one that makes all the other ones worse.  The one that tortures me because I don't have my life together and am almost clueless about where it's going. 

It's not exactly a secret that I'm Catholic.  I have chosen a faith that gives me a clear standard to live up to, and I constantly fall short of it.  I'm also the "big sister,"  the role model not only for my own siblings but for a lot of the younger girls at my church.  I'm the straight A student.  And I'm the friend that everyone at my college calls "innocent."  No pressure at all. 

Innocent.

I don't feel innocent.  I know that  I'm more like them than they realize.  We're all just looking for enough truth and purpose to back up our chaotic lives, and we're making plenty of mistakes along the way.  If anything, I am the least innocent because I have been shown a way that is good, and I throw it away deliberately.  I don't have the excuse of uncertainty that they do.  They are sincerely still searching and asking questions.  I have knowledge of good and evil, and yet I've fallen for the oldest trick in the book: the one where the serpent whispers "You will be like God,"  and I take matters into my own hands to make it happen.  And I do this all under the pretense of holiness, of earning my place in God's heart.  I try so very hard to look like I'm exemplary.  Now it's time for me to be vulnerable.  I confess to Almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned.  I have failed.  And I have beat myself up about it, too. 

See, I thought I was supposed to form myself into this indestructible force to be reckoned with.  I thought that's what Christianity was about.  I thought claiming to belong to God meant that I had to strive for an ideal, when really it's about striving to encounter a person. I thought I was supposed to be like God, but I'm actually just supposed to be united to God.  I thought I had to prove to the world that my faith was effective by becoming perfect, or close to it.

Well, turns out St. Paul is a killjoy and burst my bubble: "But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."  (2 Corinthians 12:9)

....Yeah.  That's right.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Sarah. (Cause St.  Paul would totally just be sassy with me like that.)  

For me or for anyone else to see the power of God, I have to accept that I am human.  I am not innocent.  I struggle all the time.  I experience pain just like everyone else, and I have to face my doubts and my temptations.  I am not sufficient for myself; that's His grace's job.  My weakness makes room for Him to be strong.  My humanity is an opportunity for me to meet God who I need so desperately to help deal with all this crazy life stuff.  The times I mess up are the times He gets to prove that He is merciful.  And above all, He loves me whether I've earned it or not.  

I still can't fix things.  I still don't really understand why my friends have to endure suffering, why I have to suffer, too.  I still get the urge to attempt to be god-like on my own instead of tapping into the love and power of the real deal.  He has to comfort me in the middle of the night when I realize I don't know what to do and I'm trying to be a false light to myself or to my friends.  Lucky for me, He knows how to suffer, how to feel abandoned, how to wish your burden would be taken away, and how to fix things when they look like Hell.  He knows how to win when all I do is fail. 

 I guess this is ultimately a love letter.  I love everyone who is not perfect.  I love the failures.  I love the ones who try to be innocent and the ones who have lost hope and given up on it.  I love brokenness, because it reminds me of the Healer...and Him I love most of all.  I love that what I see as a flaw, something to be condemned, He sees as a door, a place where we are vulnerable enough for Him to come in and love us with all His heart.  You don't have to be afraid to admit to the world you're not good enough.  He loves you anyway, and so do I.

~Sarah M. 









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