To Love Deeply

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”  -Lao Zsu

 

Bonesaw has been nesting.  He’s fixing the pipes in the bathrooms, installing new windows, patching up the walls in the kitchen.  We bought a new washer-dryer, and he’s repaired some of the molding in heavily-trafficked areas.  Every day it’s a new project, a new task.

I know that he’s excited, and that his Papa Bear intuition is kicking in.  I know that he’s showing love, and that these little steps and improvements are gifts.  They are acts of caring.  He’s putting things into place so that I’ll feel welcome; at home; cozy.  And it’s working.  Because Bonesaw loves deeply.  He doesn’t know any other way.  And it does give me strength; it does make me feel powerful and confident and sure.

But loving deeply trips me up.

This weekend I move in.  Someone asked me about my expectations for the moving day.  “Efficiency,” I answered.  But the truth is that, with the crew of friends who will be helping, I think it may just be fun.  Moving is always a struggle, but I hope that the day will end with a celebration.  With pizza and beer and toasts to this new adventure.

Bonesaw and I recently painted my Reading Room – or “Study” as he calls it.  We chose a bright, minty, hopeful green.  We twittered about the revised space excitedly, giddy with the accomplishment, our fingers speckled with paint.

A few days after that, we bought a soft, squishy love seat for one of the corners of the living room.  Its rusty-brown warms up the space, contrasting with the forest green on the walls.

And then, a week later, we got into a knock-down, drag-out fight.  The kind of fight that keeps you up all night, and leaves your eyes puffy from tears and lack of sleep.  I spent the next day wrestling demons and doubt, watching the sunlight change through the blinds on my bedroom windows.

“Soon you won’t have another home to go to,” he reminded me.

And as much as it sounded like a threat – like a vice, like a cage – I know what he meant:

Stick around.  Fight it out.  See it through.

Because my run-the-fuck-away approach of late really doesn’t help.  Nor does it work.  I don’t feel better, and in the end we both lose.  It’s a finely-honed, acutely-learned instinct that really kicked in following past heartache and loss, and it’s just dumb.  There’s no better way to put it.   Still, I did run that day.  Just a little bit.  I packed up all of my things like an angry child with his toys, and I retreated back to my own house.  To a place that would only be mine for exactly one more week.

But that night, we put down our weapons (and I put down my armor) and we held hands.  We barely even talked, but we didn’t really need to.  Because I’m trying to be brave.  I want to live in a room painted “Wishful Green” – a place that breeds faith and trust; confidence and freedom.  A place filled with love, where frustration and anger are okay.  Where they’re safe, even.  I don’t want to watch the sun, alone, pass across the sky.  I want to be bold enough to love deeply.


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