True, Unconditional, Friend-Love

I've had an awful lot of time to think about love. I used to think that I fell in love so easily, so quickly and definitely without enough consideration of all the facts, but now what I know to be true is that I wasn't falling in love, I was falling in hope. 

In almost every relationship I have had, I went into it hopeful. Hopeful that this human could be all that I was looking for. I even had a list of attributes that felt crucial and others that would simply be an added bonus. What a joke. You mays well throw your list right the heck out the window because when it's time, love finds you. You don't need to look for it, work for it, try really hard for it. When it's your time for love, it truly is effortless. All the time you wasted in the past, wondering if you were in love, will seem so silly, because when you're in love, it's undeniable. It is wholly consuming and at times overwhelming. 

Whether you believe your love(s) was predetermined by fate, by God, by the Universe, or that you simply happen upon it, love is like nothing else and couldn't possibly be confused for hope when you're truly in it. 

I can't decide which, if any, is more important-to be in love or to be loved. They are both such incredible things. To truly give unconditional love, and to truly be given it, is such a profound blessing. I don't believe that there is a greater gift. 

Other than my Mom and my children, I can honestly say that I hadn't truly experienced that type of pure love. No matter what came out of my mouth, or my Moms, we loved each other without condition. Always. I of course love my children in the same way, but it took until age 40 to love a friend, and feel loved, in such a non-judgmental and wholly accepted way. 

I am grateful every single day to have that kind of love. I can't even fully explain it. Were we sisters in a past life? Best friends before? She gets me and I get her. We think similar things and message at the same time. We tell each other we love each other many times daily and always say goodnight. We support each other in all ways, always, and never judge. Chances are the other one has done it anyway...or at least thought of doing it. We each see the other as beautiful, both on the inside and out. We don't pick each other apart, we lift each other up! Can you imagine if all women loved each other this way? What a beautiful thing!

Our time together is spent talking about our aspirations, our interests, hopes and dreams. We laugh and we leave replenished, always. We complain and vent too, as needed, but the lower moments are never burdensome because we love each other. 

So for all these years, while I searched for love, it just needed to find me when it was my time. Mind you, I may have told her how beautiful she was, in a buzzed message, to start the friendship....but thank goodness I did because this woman has changed my life! 

Love you. xo