Love in this life?

On Feb. 28, 2021, I wrote a blog by this title, minus the question mark. I’ve lived a bit more life since I wrote that hopeful little piece and the way I think of love has changed once again.

At that point in my life, I always thought of love in a romantic sense. With a forever partner. And I always thought that that specific kind of love had evaded me, since I always seemed to have problems with romantic love.

What I have since discovered is that I actually have experienced that rich, beautiful, loyal, unconditional love I had always been chasing and felt I’d never received because, well, the choices I made in men and the choices those men made. I had just been looking for it in the wrong places and ignoring the love that I had been cloaked in for years.

That darling, special love is the love I experience with my closest friends. They’re always judgment free zones, they ask questions and push me to be a better version of myself, they’re my biggest cheerleaders, and the ones that support me unconditionally. I was so focused on romantic love and felt its absence soooo intensely that I completely ignored the greatest love of all.

My closest friends have witnessed pretty much all the versions of me and have never once done anything other than celebrate each me that’s ever existed. I’ve never been too much for them and I’ve never had to shrink myself for them. Their words have been writing me love letters for decades and their actions have backed up each and every one of their sentences.

Now, when I hear a love song on the radio, I think of the friendships I have in abundance, those people who define what love truly is and how it is supposed to feel. They know how to love me, how to support me, and how to encourage me. When I go silent and retreat because life is just too heavy to be able to lift the weight from me, they patiently wait for me. And when I come back, they welcome me back as though I’d never gone missing and no beats were skipped.

True love is sitting with my bestie in her living room while we’re each on our phones doing our own thing because simply breathing the same air and sharing the same space is enough. She demands nothing from me, and I return that same sentiment. True love is knowing how much music and lyrics touch my heart and receiving a random song on a random day, because my bestie thought of me. True love is showing up for an event for my bestie and barely even talking to her because she’s busy hosting, yet we still feel the love between one another, without a single spoken word.

True love is listening to my drama and asking me questions and leaning in with curiosity and when I say that I just don’t know and lack understanding and clarity, they say that’s okay and remind me it’s a normal space to be in, all while being free of judgments and their opinions.

I have experienced an abundance of true love in this life. It’s always been there, I just didn’t realize it was defined in this way. Once I shifted and started listening to love songs through the lens of friendship, I practically melted.

Love in this life? Yeah, I have it. Wholly, deeply, completely. And, man, am I lucky.