The Best Gift

I received the best gift today! I was listening to a podcast of This American Life (episode #207) and there was a story about a mother and son. She told their story about how her son was born with several disabilities and how she had to deal with them. Within the story the mother interviewed her son and you can hear his sweet young voice articulate his perception of things. By age seven, he'd had heart failure and been diagnosed as bipolar that lead to a very dark and destructive existence. His mother eventually got him on some medication that changed and improved both of their lives. She described how over a short time a sweet, nice boy emerged from within; the marvelous little boy we hear on the podcast. As a parent, though my children were healthy and well adjusted, I could relate to some of the issues that the mother talked about. We all know that there are certain struggles and issues that are universal to mankind and we can easily identify with someone that is facing them  because they have to, there's no alternative. Then it happened, within the story the mother paused and made this statement.

"When I was doing these interviews with him I realized something about him that I hadn't seen before, which is all those hearts and bunnies and rainbows that he talks about all the time, its not because he's silly. It's because he's been through more pain and powerlessness than most people ever will in their whole life. I think he took all that information about life about what it means and what it means for him to be alive and he made an informed decision that he's gonna be happy with the good parts of life and he's gonna spread them around. I think that he knows something about hearts and bunnies, and rainbows. He's not like Forrest Gump, you know, it all came out of something very hard. And he has a very strong will."

Thank you God! I felt like angels had grabbed me under each arm and lifted me off of the ground! What this wonderful mother, this insightful soul said about her son was the answer to what I've been struggling with! I have always been an optimist and have always wanted to see the best in everyone and spread my joy and optimism with everyone I meet. I have been accused of being a dreamer, and too nice. But too often my goodheartedness gets quickly kicked to the curb and my optimism is quashed by the sarcastic pessimism of others. I am always walking away wondering what's wrong with me and why I don't learn my lesson and not be so congenial and gregarious. Well, it's because I have come from a hard place of pain and powerlessness and back when I was a little boy I made an informed decision that I'm going to be happy with the good parts of life and I'm gonna spread them around! Thanks to the little boy in the story and his incredible mother, after fifty years I now know my motivations! I just want to be happy in life and I prefer that everyone around me is happy. At fifty I know that I am not responsible for anyone else's happiness but my own. But that doesn't mean that I shouldn't be amiable and helpful to others.

My one regret is that the woman who is the mother in this true story wanted to remain anonymous. I was so hoping to write to her and thank her and her son for the best gift. Maybe some day that will happen so for now all I can do is to pay it forward. This will be made easier riding on angels' wings.

God speed!

What Is Love

I have to write this to do nothing more than to get it off of my chest. In my never ending quest of looking inward I've had an epiphany of sorts and it is for my own good to step thru the door and see where it leads. On a personal level I always thought that I knew what love was. And for the most part I think that I understand it. But I now understand that my idea of love, and my feelings of love are mine and only mine. Somewhere in my development I misinterpreted the idea that everyone was feeling the same thing that I was; that we all have the same idea of love. To qualify my idea of love, I am a romantic. I am a dreamer and I dream of romance. I believe every love song that I hear as if it's angels whispering in my ears and I desire to live out each one. I believe in happy endings and each one leaves an afterglow of love and warmth in my heart and then the thrill of the next event of falling into love. In my perfect world I love everyone and everyone loves me the same way that I love them (see the Golden Rule). And within my idea of love, love is to be shared all the time, 24/7/365; no time off. Also within my idea of love it should manifest itself in action because to me, how would one know they are loved if they are not shown that they are loved. To me love in action is to spend time, all the time that I can with my loved ones. I like to be in their company, all the time. I like to do things with them, whatever that may be. It is not the event that matters, it's the time spent together. When I love someone I put them above myself. My loyalty and devotion that I equate with my level of love is similar to that of man's best friend, a dog; it's funny but true. Think about it; a dog is always happy to see you, glad to go where you go and just hang out with you all day long. I gladly sacrifice anything that I may want to do to hangout with someone that I love and spend my time with them because that makes me happy. 

The epiphany or realization that I have come to understand as alluded to above is that this is only my experience. I was under the assumption that my loved ones were thinking the same way. In other words, their perception of love and its manifestation were the same as mine. I now understand that my type of love is obsessive, smothering and not at a level that is accomplished by most folks. You see, I had always thought that if my loved ones weren't spending time with me and taking an interest in my thoughts and activities, it meant that they didn't love me.

Let me digress here for a moment and state that I do understand and have always understood that there is a difference between love and like. And more often then not when it comes to family, we can love one another but not like one another. For example, my parents love me but they may not like my lifestyle. Sometimes it's nothing more than a conflict in personality; we love each other but we just can't understand one another's ways. So each relationship has it's limits. And this is the same with love because we all have a different idea of what love is. To me, there is nothing less than 100% of my time and attention devoted to the ones I love. I have no doubt that most people feel the same way but as I've stated above, I've come to realize that my 100% is different than your 100%.

I recently saw a picture of the person that I love the most and she was a teenager. She had a bright glow on her beautiful young face, a broad smile the could light up a room and sparkling, innocent eyes and all that I could think of is how could anyone not love that girl. Then it occurred to me that at the time that the photo was taken she was becoming an independent young lady; an adult full of hopes and dreams, the world laid out in front of her. She has her own interests, her own likes and dislikes, and her own idea of love. It was then that I realized that after all of these years, her idea of love is different than mine because we are different people. I mean, I always kind of knew that, but either I was in denial and couldn't face it or I wasn't developed enough to truly have it sink into my psyche. Anyway, when I began dating her and getting to know her, all of my attention was given to the things that we had in common. I wanted her to love me so I found out what she liked and then took an interest in those things. I found out what she didn't like and made a concerted effort to take her side in understanding why and assisted her in avoiding them. I concentrated on the characteristics that I liked most about her and focused only on them. It was easy because I was (and still am) in love. My desire was to be her complete idea of her best companion so that she would hold onto me; she would choose me to be her life long companion. I wanted to take care of her, to protect her from an ugly world, and to make her happy. I was also under the impression that she was feeling and thinking all of the same things about me in all the same ways. That sounds crazy right? Of course; she's a completely different person. She has her own ideas and experiences and was raised in a different environment, i.e. family dynamic. Yes, she loves me in her own way. Before her I was learning about my idea of love with my friends. I still have the same feelings of love for my best friend that I had as a kid though so much has changed. We've grown to be two independent men living miles apart with different lifestyles. When we were kids we were inseparable. Why? Because I was constantly chasing him down and tagging along side of him. If it had been left to him to spend time with me, he may have not found the time or been so inclined meaning that we probably wouldn't have done as much together. Perhaps with less interaction we wouldn't have even been best friends. It's interesting to look at it from that perspective. In any regard I have repeated this crazy pattern over and over again with every relationship. I go above and beyond to spend time with people, feeling as though I'm almost chasing after them which is seldom if ever reciprocated, and then when it isn't I am hurt. I believed in the Golden Rule and to my detriment thought that everyone else did to. I believed that everyone would treat me the way that I treated them. I believed that I wouldn't have to chase people down or look them up because they would be coming to see me all the time. And that's the rub; I know see that we all have subliminal rules in our heads that were planted there by one form or fashion and when someone is breaking our rules we're annoyed. We feel resentment towards the ones we love because they are not doing as we think they should. But they don't know our rules unless they care enough to ask and they won't abide by our rules unless they want to for our happiness.

Had I been more balanced in my life I wouldn't have had to be so clingy and therefore the relationships with my friends would have certainly turned out differently. I fall for the love songs because it is in my nature to do so. I now know that I created the lofty ideas of love in my mind and held everyone to my high standard. I have no regrets because I've loved everyone to the best of my ability. But it is time to give myself a gift; a birthday gift of sorts because it is the beginning of a new life. I am not chasing down anyone anymore. I'll be friendly to those people that are friendly to me. And within this gift I am giving back to the ones I love by giving them the space they deserve to pursue their likes and interests without my input or company; unless of course they ask for it. 

As an aside to this, in contemplation of all of this it occurred to me; this type of love that I carry so easily in my heart can easily be applied to and perhaps only reciprocated by God.  We often hear of how we should love God with all of our heart and with all of our mind. If you have the natural capacity to love someone, to put them above yourself and have dogged loyalty and devotion then it's easy to sacrifice anything to hangout with that someone because that makes you happy. In actuality there is no sacrifice in it at all because there is nothing you'd rather do. It's a rare thing. The best part is that only God will love you back by honoring the Golden Rule because He made it up.

God speed