Prepared to Love

So this photo came across my Instagram feed today and it spoke to me. I've always advised my friends that love comes to you when you're not looking. What I never thought about was being prepared to love. How do you prepare to love? How do you know you're ready for the sacrifice that comes with the love we all desire? There will be times when love is hard, contrary to what we see portrayed on TV. So, how do we as responsible human beings truly prepare to love? To me it starts with self love, because if you can't love and value yourself, how can you possibly love someone else? Love is an extension of ourselves. It is a part of our soul and heart that we lend to another in hopes of getting the same in return. It isn't something to be toyed with or taunted with on social media. It comes with an understanding of compromise, trust, and faith. It entails sticking by someone through both good and bad. It means making sacrifices to sometimes appease your mate. It means that you need to be prepared to have tough conversations and be willing and able to truly listen and understand what your partner is saying. It means being attentive to their emotional and physical needs and desires. It means being ready to stand in your love when your partner falls weak. It means understanding that sharing love isn't the same as being in love. You have to be able to love without having the feeling of being in love. You can only do that if you are prepared. There's an old saying: "Piss poor preparation leads to piss poor performance." This is true in the realm of love as well. If you don't prepare yourself, you will fail at the task at hand. So, we must begin to love ourselves, to care for our spirit, and to not only recognize but correct our biggest flaws. Only then can we be ready.

In addition to that, many of us have been in situations that we called love, but were truly pain. Can that pain prepare you to love? I believe so. See, there is a lesson in each experience we have if we choose to learn it. Pain has taught me what I do not want in my life. It has taught me that red flags are not to be overlooked. Pain has taught me that I am stronger than I realized and it has rebuilt me into a better person. I am a firm believer that without pain, we can;t experience true joy. We must learn from these experiences in an effort to prevent them moving forward. Let me be clear and say that I never want another human to suffer, but the reality is that we do. Now, we can allow that to bury us or to build us. I think that pain helps build us, because it is in our weakest moments that we find our truest strength. It's crazy how that works, but beautiful as well. Think about sculptures that are created from erosion. They broke until they formed something of beauty. Pain tends to shape us in the same manner.

Preparing to love takes self reflection, strength, self love, and acceptance of lessons created by experience. Are you prepared?