Big L or little l?

Big L or little l?

There is Love, and there is love.

Love is unconditional… big L.

Love is conditional…little l.

Unconditional love is not for a person with a name.  Unconditional love is the way I care for all things in existence, appreciate their intrinsic perfection and accept them exactly as they are.  

When we try to love a person unconditionally we become a martyr to love.

I learned that from a man.  

Tried to love him unconditionally and found him driven mad.  Drunk and throwing burning candle wax at me in the night.  Destroying my home in a frenzy, giving me nowhere to go.  Out alone wondering in the jungle at night in a foreign land.  Thousands of miles from anything familiar.  

Of course I would forgive him, I love him.  

The scrape and bruise that meant I could not sit down.  

I would love him still.

Empty without him.  

My heart aching, hollow and alone.  

Only he was my love.  

He made my life a broken thing.  Madness reflected in the eyes of all my former friends.  Madness was his gift to me.

Little l… the boundaries.  What I will and will not do with this body.  What you can and cannot do with me.  

Do not think love with a little l is insignificant in any way.  It is the one in all the films and songs.  It’s the one that makes a marriage.  A contract between consenting adults.  Love with a little l is what makes the world a lovely place.  The care between friends, who support one another, help to grow each other’s’ dreams.  

I’ve come to see how important love with a little l is.  Conditional love is the only kind to aspire to in this world.  

The other kind is there anyway, requiring no aspiration.  I love you anyway and always, no matter what. I love you, but I don’t have to stick around to watch your behaviour.

I love you, but I love you because I love me.  

I love you as me.

Without me, there is no loving you.  

There is only Love.