Cost of Love 2-23-10

I want someone who will follow my dream.  I want someone to back me up.  I need one person that I know won't betray me.  Too many people love the person they wish to be, as if by loving that person, or being loved by that person, they can attain the importance they crave.  People should not lock their dreams onto another person.  Who loves me or who I love is not as significant as who I am.  I don't want to give up my ambitions to make someone else's life possible.  Why can't people love one another and still remain free?  Well, for one, to love another person like that, you have to admit that their life is as important as yours.  Harder still, you have to admit to yourself that perhaps they have needs you cannot fill.  It costs loneliness and longing and doubt.  Many people find that the price on this kind of love is to high.  Is love giving up all for someone else?  For some people, it is.  Why must love cost anything?  Why do needs and wants have to be mixed up with love?  Because, we are people.  To pretend that people can come together, love and then part with no pain or consequence is more false than pretending to be a good person.

I've come to understand that the people who love have the willingness to listen - not only with ears but with the heart as well.  I now am willing to put myself where the other stands, to not think of my own reply and advantage, but of what the other is saying.  Listening with my heart will carry me through my trials, my sorrows, and enhance my joys.

Love isn't just about feeling sure of the other person.  It's knowing with certainty what they would give up for you.  It's knowing with certainty what you are willing to surrender for their sake.  Make no mistake, each person gives up something.  Individual dreams are surrendered for a shard one.