Love is scary. It scares me at least. Why does it scare me? Because love demands openness. It demands honesty. It demands being seen and seeing. It abhors hiding and isolation, and I’ve been hiding and isolating for so long.

I’ve always thought I wanted more love. If you’d have asked me, I would’ve told you I wanted more love. Of course! Who wouldn’t? But my actions might’ve spoken otherwise.

I heard something recently that gave me pause. I heard how in India, they often say quite confidently how arranged marriages work better than love marriages. The reason: because we are so bad at love.

Now I am not exactly “for” arranged marriages, and I know that the culture around those tends to be restrictive and toxic. But at the same time, we are bad at love. Most marriages that are supposedly “love marriages”, or self-arranged marriages, crumble. Maybe love was there, but it didn’t work out; it couldn’t last.

We can talk about the root cause of failed love marriages as being due to the “imagination problem”. We are with our imagined person rather than the actual person. But this is only possible because we ourselves don’t show up. We are happy to be their imagined person rather than ourself. It feels so good to receive appreciation and positivity doesn’t it? But what are we receiving that appreciation and positivity for? Are we faking our way to it? Are we pretending?

A decent relationship allows us to be ourself some of the time. But true love has no patience for some of the time. If we are not on the road to all of the time, love will cast us out and away. The same is true for friends and family too, even acquaintances, even strangers. Love is everywhere, and Life has no patience for some of the time.

Maybe I am idealistic, but I have experienced and am experiencing the Road to Love. It is not a pleasant or easy road. It is a raw, naked, and demanding road. It is like Kahlil Gibran described:

When love beckons to you, follow him,
     Though his ways are hard and steep.
     And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
     Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
     And when he speaks to you believe in him,
     Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

     For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
     Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
     So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
     Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself
     He threshes you to make your naked.
     He sifts you to free you from your husks.
     He grinds you to whiteness.
     He kneads you until you are pliant;
     And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

To put it simply, love has no place for ego, or it has no place for false ego. To experience love, to be free to experience love, all falsehoods need to be flattened and ironed out. It can be painful to be ironed, but that gets rid of the wrinkles…

I often think of it like the Ten of Swords card. Hollywood doesn’t paint love like this, but this is part of it! There is sun on the horizon though…

I’m grateful to everyone in my life, who I love and who has taught me love. I hope to continue to invite more in, however scary that may be.