We All Want Love

We all want love but let’s stop wanting love right now, right this moment. We can’t get love at the drive through window. Love isn’t a fast food. It’s not a greasy, artery clogging hamburger with fries and a large drink. It’s not a menu item and you can’t super size it nor order it any way you want. When we’re hungry for love, we can’t pull it out of the fridge and stick it in the microwave. Instead, let’s want companionship, conversation, a good start. Let’s be on the receiving end of a great smile, a welcome laugh. I think we’ll find that when the time comes, if we ask for a friend, an activity partner, someone interesting to spend an evening with, love will come on its own. Love is like homemade bread. Gather your ingredients. Mix them together. Knead the dough, shape it. Let it rise for a while. Bake it. A good loaf of bread takes patience. So does love.

We all want love but let’s stop expecting it. Let’s stop feeling entitled to it. Love is an art, a skill. Keep a beginner’s mind. Every time you put yourself out there, you’re starting over with a blank slate, a blank page, an untouched piece of wood or stone. Every time you put yourself out there, you’re asking another artist to add their opinion. No matter how brilliant you both are, no matter how much you see eye to eye, you’re going to have to struggle to work together on this masterpiece. Love doesn’t come gift wrapped. Let’s stop asking it to be.

We all want love, but let’s stop hurrying toward it. Love is not a race. It’s not about winning a heart but earning one. If you treat love as a goal, you’ll miss out on the journey and the journey doesn’t have a destination. Love is a long walk around a lake. Sometimes the view is breathtaking. Part of the path may be sunny and part of it may be shaded. The path will climb and fall. Sometimes you walk together in silence and sometimes you learn something new from a passionate conversation or just remember good times you've spent together. You may get frustrated by the litter some careless hiker left upon the ground. The possibilities of this walk are endless. When the walk is over, you’ve simply come back home and you’ll rest and start again.

We all want love but let’s believe in eventualities. Let’s ask for what we can have now and build on those foundations. Someone like me will ask you to dance, to sail, to drink wine and coffee, to listen to him play guitar and sing. On the occasional beautiful day, he may even ask you to take a walk around the lake. Or play frisbee golf. Think about what you want to ask him. And then, perhaps, as you sit in the car, next to each other on a park bench talking beneath the trees or across the table at breakfast you’ll discover that somehow, you’ve fallen “accidentally in love.”