Well I remember being told that if you love someone

you do things for them and with them even if you don’t want to.

Because it doesn’t take much to make their day.

And how much can it really hurt you to do that for them?

So … love is doing things you don’t want to do.

So … love does not equal desire.

Then I remember … seeing someone in my family decide enough was enough

And they weren’t going to do anything that they didn’t want to do.

Or … really it was that they weren’t going to do things that hurt them.

Because doing things for other people and tolerating certain behaviors

was actually really hurting them. So … love was choosing yourself over others.

So … love does equal desire.

For me, I’ve had many interactions that I did not desire to have.

But I had them out of ‘love’ for the person or people.

Going to Christmas parties I didn’t want to go to.

Driving to visit extended family for birthday parties that I didn’t want to go to.

Visiting even though I felt uncomfortable.

Calling even though I didn’t know what to say.

In those instances … was I doing it out of love?

And for a while, I did the opposite.

I didn’t call unless I really felt I wanted to.

I didn’t go unless I really wanted to.

I learned to say no. It hurt a lot at times.

In those instances… was I doing it out of love?

Right now, I am in limbo.

I’m not calling.

I’m not visiting.

I’m not going places.

I am sitting and hearing my heart.

Because I don’t know what it means to me to do things out of love.

I don’t know what it means to me to love these people.

Outside of everything I’ve seen and have been told, I’m not sure.

So I want to know what it all means to me.

The most I’ve ever had to prove myself has been within the circle of my bloodline.

That hurts me so deeply I’m not sure there’s words for it.

Why should I have to prove myself to you?

Why can’t we just give each other the benefit of the doubt?

Why do I have to unlearn and decondition from so much of what you have given me?

Am I a victim to my own family?

So I wonder… why do I feel like love exists somewhere in this duality of desire and undesired?

How come I learned that love is something that you do whether you desire to or not?

Is that truth?

Is it love to only do what I want to do?

Is it love to do things even if I don’t feel like it just because I love someone?

How can I do what is the most loving for all involved?

How can I do what is most loving for me?

For the first time, I am asking myself that.

How is my heart?

How is my heart?

Heart? How are you?

Today, on the mat, I was asked that.

How is your heart?

What I heard was ‘patient’.

Thank goodness.

Because I panic.

That I am running out of time.

I am trying so hard to figure this out that I want to have peace in all of my family relationships.

I want to know what is the right way to go about this through all of the things we have experienced.

And I don’t want anything to happen to anyone in the meantime.

Before I have my truth and can act on it.

I am avoiding myself. Because when I sit in stillness or silence long enough… it hits me like a freight train.

What if she dies?

What if she dies before I can figure it out?

What will you do then B?

Oh it really panics me.

And so I am allowing myself to acknowledge that.

I realized today that I have started accepting my life.

It’s so beautiful.

I realized today that I must have started allowing it all at some point.

Because the acceptance is here in ways that I haven’t experienced before.

And I also affirmed for myself that I really want to be in situations, in relationships, with people, where I can continue to feel and be accepted.

And I take my time, with myself.

In the shower I also received the feeling and the words ‘I have time.’

I know I need to sit long enough to see what is here.

I have time. I have time. I have time.

Trusting in this part of my journey feels scary.

Is it love? Or is it desire?

It feels a little bit of both.

It feels time to sit with myself and see what is on my heart.

Feel into what feels correct for me to do.

Scary to not know how everything else involved will pan out.

Nice to know that I am here for myself.

And… every time I think of it, I say out loud that I love every single one of these people and if I can send them love I will. I wish that they could feel it. I want to believe that they do.

Love. Do I even really know what it means?

I always wonder what to do about desires.

I don’t want them to take over my life. But I also don’t want to deny them, especially not in this context. So here we are. I am embracing my desire for rest. For time away from situations and having to face things or do the things I’ve always done because that’s what I’ve always done or what was expected of me or what I was told to do.

I am embracing my desire for care and for love and for allowing myself to acknowledge, allow and accept my experience of my family growing up and my relationships with them as they have been and as they are now.

These things feel important to me and important to my journey.

And in some ways, they feel like love.

I feel complete.