I Am a Lover

            I always thought that I was a fighter. I was never sure if it was by nature or by force but I always felt like I had to fight to get what I want. It wasn't like I grew up fighting for my food or for clean clothes… my parents did provide for us and I don’t remember lacking in anything however as I grew older I felt like I fought so much to get where I was, for my marriage, my image, my lifestyle, my job and so on. Then once I had those things it was a fight to keep them. I still fight to keep some of them and yes this is a confession…I sometimes still fight for a marriage that no one else seems to think is a good idea, including the person I married. Somehow it’s not in me to just give up or let go…not on situations or on people. I definitely do not give up on people even when I think I should or when they think I should…I just hate to see people fail. Defeat should not be an option and I feel as though people need help and lots of support to live up to their full potential. I get that it’s a choice and people live the life they think they deserve but I wish they knew what they really deserved and what was available for them. No matter what has happened, what they have done or who they are I know that it can be better. I was thinking about this the other night and it hit me…I am not a fighter, I am a lover and I think that lovers have to be fighters. I think that love is the hardest battle you will ever fight. First of all you have to learn how to love yourself before you can really love someone else and that’s just a crazy amount of fighting because you are usually your biggest enemy. Then once you have reached that point and you begin to love people you realize that loving people is so different from liking people or lusting for people and then it’s a whole new battle to really love people and all of this time you are battling yourself. You are fighting what you thought you knew about life and love and people. You are fighting against what other people have told you love is and what you see in movies or read in books. In the end of all of that you fight an incredible disappointment you have in what love really is. It’s not a feel good emotion, it’s not a party all day long with hearts coming out of your eyes, it is complete care and concern for someone else and sometimes it actually feels horrible. Sometimes what hurts the most is really loving someone because you hurt when they hurt and you hurt when they hurt you, and all of this time that you are fighting you never realize that one of the biggest battle is yet to come. I've actually found that some of these battles you never really over come, or at least I don’t. I think I have something conquered and then I get hurt or I get scared and I want to run away and hide, I forget that it just means I really love them. So every time I get hurt or every time I see a scar I fight that battle again. I fight to learn what true love is. The last battle you learn how to fight is the one where people reject your love, or maybe they reject you and immediately you want to cancel out that love you have for them because suddenly it’s scary or unsure but by now you know that will never happen. If you love them then it’s settled, you can’t “un-love” someone. I have said it before because its true…the kind of care and concern you have for them may change but the love never will, it will just seem like a different kind of love. So you fight that battle, you fight to love people because people don’t think they deserve it. They are ashamed because they can’t give you what you give them. Maybe they don’t really want to or maybe they don’t know how to love you like that but either way they will push the love away or make it seem smaller than it is. It can be really discouraging and it can make loving someone that much harder but if you’re anything like me you wont let it ruin love for you and definitely wont stop loving them. It sounds exhausting, it actually is but it’s so much better to fight for love then to fight just to live. Loving people is the best thing in the world. It makes you a better person and a lot of times it makes them a better person. So maybe I am not really a fighter and I am definitely a lover but one thing I know is that every single day I fight for love. I would say that in the end, at the end of the day I am stronger because I love not because I fight.