Love,
I have been thinking about this word a lot lately. Also how you treat someone when you clam to “love” them. Looking back on my life I have had a lot of people tell me they love me, and I have told people that I love them. When you love a person, be it a significant other, or a child, or a friend, or family member, how should you treat that person? Do you respect what they have to say, or just pretend to lessen? Do you do thoughtful things for them? Do you help them out in any way you can, even if all you can do is be a shoulder to cry on, or let them fight the battles of life on their own? Do you make demands of them or do you ask nicely and then show them appreciation when they help you out.
These are all things that have been running threw my mind. Why you might ask? I have been looking at my life and the people that surround me, or have in the past. Best way to learn about yourself is some times looking at the past. I have always been the peace maker. I have let people walk all over me just to keep that “peace.” People that have said “I love you.” Then turn around and for no better of a phrase stab me in the back. I want 2011 to be different. I want to feel better about me and life in general. I have slowly been making changes in my life to feel better and less stress.
If a person loves a child do they take them to a Urgent Care center if the child almost drowns, or stay at the house because the adults had been fighting and one was drinking and they didn’t want to get into trouble for not watching out for them better? If a person says they love you and want to marry you do they sit on your abdomen insisting that the other have sex with them in the middle of a park, only getting off when you start to cry? Do they get you pregnant on a bet if they love you? If you love a person do you take what they have to say in account when making major life changing decisions? When you love a person do you constantly put work and others ahead of wife/husband and kids? If you love a child that is now an adult, do you respect decisions they make about not talking with other family members, or do you continually try and get them to talk to the person. If you love a sibling, do you see what they are struggling with and find out what you can do to help, or just make things worse by putting them down every time you see them. Calling Child Protective Services on them. Or do you help them learn and grow into the house work and child care. Most of these things have been done “out of love!”
My Mother and Father in law tell everyone how sweet I am and how much they love me. My Mother-in-law tells everyone how much help I am to her and that she thinks of me like her own daughter. Every time I hear this I think I don’t really deserve the praise. I have had so many years of being put down, and told I am not doing good enough or helped out enough, that I have come to believe it. So in 2011 I have decided that I want to be surrounded by people who respect my opinion and me as a person. I want to learn how to love myself again. I want to see the person that my In-laws see when I look in the mirror. Not the one that all those life experiences have made me feel like. I placed a child for adoption because I loved her so much I knew I could not take care of her. Even threw that I had family putting me down over it. Telling me I shouldn’t do it, family that had not hardly talked to me the whole time I was growing up. I know that I am not with out fault. I know I have carelessly used the word love. Which for the past 12 years I have been trying to use the word love as carefully as I use the word hate. I want to be know in my life for the caring and love I show, but I am not going to be a door matt any more either. Thanks for reading this and here is to an awesome 2011!
