Things as they really are

Thinking about what it means to see things as they really are.  Much of my energy in life has been spent trying to make things be what I think they should be.  This has mostly been in the form of attempting to control other's perceptions of me, or alter my perception of myself.  For many years I thought I could actually change myself, change who I was, or change some aspect of me simply by altering what I liked and what I didn't like.  What I've learned is that it is simultaneously much more complex and much more simple.  It is complex in that it is impossible for me to understand all of the interactions of emotion, desire, needs, feelings, and thoughts resulting from even the smallest thought.  Yet it is much more simple in that each thought, feeling, desire, emotion, and need may be simply just what it is.

Today I said simply, "I love you" to a friend.  More of an acquaintance, really, but I understand somewhat of the challenges that are facing him.  He may have no knowledge of what I meant when I said those words:  how I want him to know that he is accepted, that I have felt how he feels, how it is uncomfortable to know that someone else is experiencing that, that I know I would not take away the feelings for what he can learn from them, but knowing how hard it is to face them, how each time we face them it is a battle to be won or lost.  And how uncomfortable it feels, as a man, to say those words, but how good it feels to hear it said to you.  And how vulnerable it feels to say to someone, "I love you", and to not know what they will hear.

But I believe that it was appreciated.  We will both move forward in life and this will pass, but in that instant it simply meant what I said:

I love you.

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