So for a while I was posting my elemental love work in my live journal, but I've moved it over to here, starting this month...though I'll keep the rest in my livejournal as that suits me to keep it there. Nine months in and I just celebrated my anniversery with my wife, and the anniversery of when we met in person. We've been married two years and I did a lot of thinking about that and what marriage has taught me these last two years, and in particular the last nine months. This last month has continued me on that path of being open and vulnerable with her, without expectation....just letting her in and also letting myself in. Seems to me that you can't really know yourself or love yourself until you let yourself in to you...and if that sounds like a paradox, its really not...we build so many shields to other people that we end up putting ourselves outside the shield as well. No one wants to feel again the shame or humiliation for something done in the past, and yet to really be with yourself is to sometimes feel those feelings again so you can really let go of them, instead of holding them in you.
So in opening up to Lupa, I have had to open up to myself...and really that process has been occurring for the last nine months, not just with her, but with other people. Sometimes I've shut it down, not really able to handle that vulnerability...It takes work, a lot of effort, and there's also selectivity, because not just anyone fits the bill in terms of being open with someone...and it takes honesty, which isn't a quality I've ever had an easy relationship with. When you are used to hiding from yourself so that you hide from others, it takes work to stop hiding. For me, a victory is when I can choose not to act on impulse, but can stop, really look at it and then bring it up to myself and Lupa. No easy thing to do, but when it happens, I do feel better for it.
I think what I've really learned about love is that the initial period of being "in love" may seem like the best time to people, but what's really the best time is finding that intimacy, that belief in each other, and in yourself, when you've been in a relationship for a while. That requires a lot of communication, but also openness with someone. At the same time I have to admit I can really appreciate my intuition on who I can be open with...it's not for everyone that I could be so open with. Openness with yourself or someone else takes time...it has to happen at the pace that you're comfortable with, even in the other person wants you to open up at a different pace. But as a person opens and really lets someone in, as well as hirself, it does make for an opportunity to really discover the self and share it.
In thinking about the last nine months of love work and what has been asked of me in this work...As each layer has come away, as each moment has revealed to me what I need to sit with, as each person has come into my life or already been there, or left, I find learning opportunities...desire, intimacy, friendship, openness...and really a challenge to myself is what will you do with all that you've learned...How will you use it, now that you've experienced it...what meaning will these last nine months and the next three months have in the book of your life.
The answer is being written, found, chosen, lived, slowly but surely.