Promises

“He started to estrange her..

and they became strangers

who knew each other’s heart,

so broken as they drifted apart.”

~Ana Claudia Antunes~

I talk a lot about love.Maybe it’s because I believe in love. I believe that loving someone is not something that you just wake up and decide to do.You grow that love over time, and as hard as it may be, you keep loving that person no matter what.

Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’
‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.
‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’
‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’
‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

This is one of my favourite quotes from The Velveteen Rabbit, a children’s book by Margery Williams.I read it a long, long time ago, but these words have never left me. In essence, love just is. You love someone for who they are, not for what they have, or what they can do for you.It is unfortunate in today’s world, love is a word that is bandied around a lot.It lost meaning a long time ago. Love is becoming real like the Skin Horse says.It takes a long time, and even when you are old and grey, love is still blind to any imperfections.Once you love someone, they can never be ugly, except to those on the outside looking in.

Lots of times we say we love someone, and we may mean it at the time.We are constantly changing, and those feelings may change with time. Unless two people make a conscious effort to keep up with these changes and make compromises as they go along, they may end up estranging each other. Two people who happen to know each other’s hearts so well, and yet are complete strangers. I have been a victim of this in the past.I changed, and someone was not willing to make compromises for me.We became estranged.Someone has changed in the recent past and I have not been willing to let go while it is what was required of me.It has been so hard to make that compromise, yet I have no option but to.I love this person deeply, so it is only fair that I let him go because it is what is right for him. We have become estranged, and I have been clinging on, which is not fair to me, or him. Promises were made, and broken.I need to forgive and move on.I need to find closure.

In these situations, the best thing is to love them still, but from a distance.Let them go.If things are meant to be, they will be. To me, he is real, he will never be unreal.For sure, when you are real, you don’t mind being hurt, and being real only happens to those who don’t break easily.I am real, more real than I ever have been, and I will not break, as much as I feel like I am coming apart at the seams.It wasn’t anything I did, yet I have tried everything to make things right. The only thing that I can do now, is to let go and let God.