What happened to the lovers?

[This article was published in Mystic Gazette]

What happened to the lovers?

I wonder when we started to be scared of love. When this sacred feeling turned into scary feeling.

When did we start to filter our love because of some fear of betrayal or abandonment?

Sure. Not everyone is scared of being abandoned or betrayed, but most of us limit our capacity to love. Loving ourselves, loving our lives, loving our partners and family. Just simply loving.

So what happened?

I have been scared of love for a big part of my life.

First, I was taught that expressing your emotions too much makes you weak and a potential prey to people. So I learned how to be tough and how to mold social masks that I could use depending on the situation. My skills at hiding were so good that I even created a mask that I put on when I was with my family. There was no social space where I was truly authentically showing myself. And even less, my love.

 Then I fell in love for the first time in my life at 25 years old.

I know. It’s late.

Picture | Woody Allen and Romy Schneider

But the walls around my heart were so strong and high that no one could ever pass through. Not even me. So when that person entered my life, he didn’t deconstruct the wall, crash it with a wrecking ball, or use any loud and strong methods to demolish it. He simply built a little door in the wall. A little door that he used at the beginning to pass on the other side. He knew that the lousy ways would make me run away. He knew that more deconstruction would only hurt me even more. Because what was on the other side of the wall was a very vulnerable wild animal who did not know how to love anymore.

The little door became a portal over the years.

He came every day to love that place within me. With time and patience, he turned that infertile land into a luxurious garden.

That’s how I’ve learned how to love. Again.

 With years of loving, I realized that I was pretty good at that sport.

Not golden medal champion, but I could easily be on the podium of love.

I realized that with love comes generosity.

And with generosity comes... disappointment?

I don’t love many people in my life.

But when I do, you can be sure you are going to get a big bucket full of love with a topping of presents, acknowledgment, and devotion. When I love, I L-O-V-E.

I have a very big heart with a big stock of generosity pills. I love to give and I love to make people happy and seen. I love to see them smile because they felt seen for an instant..

I would say that my moon in Leo has something to do with this, but you should ask my astrologer about that.

Generosity is my Achilles' heel.

It took me a few years to realize that, but in some ways, my generosity was slowly killing me.

Let me clarify that sentence because it sounds more dramatic than it is. My generosity led me to some very sad and painful moments where I felt more lonely and disconnected than helpful.

I found myself multiple times in situations where I was holding so much space for friends, holding so much love for them to become and share their light that I forgot to hold that space for myself. I found myself giving a lot, loving a lot, without limitations and... never getting anything in return. I realized that generosity is a gift but a burden at the same time.

That loving endlessly without limitation is beautiful, but sometimes you wish people could give you the same. You wish they could see you the same way you see them.

And that’s when things get complicated... when your gift makes you bitter.

Being generous led me to a lot of bittersweet feelings. Being generous made me mad. I found myself beating myself up and taking radical decisions on not being *that* generous anymore because I was oh-so-exhausted of never receiving the same feeling in return.

I basically started to dim my generosity.

Dimming my true nature. Again.

Did it make me less bitter to love less and give less?

Not really.

Did I find the secret medicine to that wound?

Not really.

What I can say is that we can't force love to happen, and we can limit our generosity to flow. I am who I am. I love. I give. I share and I love again. Limiting my generosity would be like building back the wall around my heart. It would constraint my heart in loving. In feeling.

Because that’s what it is to be human.

To feel.

To give without expecting anything in return but admitting that sometimes you would love something in return.

To Love. No matter how, when and why, but to loose yourself in loving.

So what happened to the lovers I asked?

I don’t know. But I hope they will never stop sharing their love because love is the only true medicine in the world.