Falling in Love...

No, not me...

Not yet anyway...

I think we need to update the phrase.  We either fall in love over and over again with the same person who is all wrong for us, or we do the work so that we can wait for the better, more healed version of what attracts us to arrive.  Then we have the very hard task of falling in love with that one person over and over again, even though there are going to be many times it seems way easier to just say forget it and bolt.

I am not the same person I was 20 years ago.  Hell, I am not the same person I was yesterday.  I am constantly and blessedly evolving on the daily.  And if you are lucky enough to find someone who wants to make a life time commitment to you and your growth, you can be sure they will also be an ever changing landscape of personality, some of which you will not love all that much, all of the time.  But if you can hold the line and be patient, you may find this new version of your beloved is better than you could have ever imagined.

I think the secret, which isn’t really a secret, or shouldn’t be anyway, is that WE have to make the commitment to fall in love with the new version of our partner every day.  Wake up thinking, “who the fuck will John or Jane be today?”  “Well, I am not sure but I am going to be open to who they show up as today and do my best to love them for who they are, not who I want them to be.”  And then the hardest part is to have picked a Jane or John that is capable and willing to make the same commitment to you.  These are the couples we envy, that appear to have it all.  They don’t, they are just willing to recommitment to the same decision each new day and do their best to fall in love all over again, still.

The falling out of love is easy, we do it all the time.  The hard part is making the decision, because it is a decision, to fall back in love with them, day after day, week after week, year after year.  Most people make the choice when they are in the falling out of love stage, the trick is to hold on long enough until you are in the falling in love stage and then make the choice. Life time love stories are not one person falling love with one person.  The End.  No, it is different versions of the same two people falling in and out of love with each other day after fucking day.  Life time love stories are not love stories between two people, it is an ever evolving love story between two people and all their many iterations.

None of us is static, never changing.  Our love stories mirror our willingness and ability to shift, pivot, commit and recommit ourselves to another, to ourselves, to the new version of whomever you wake up with today.  I promise you they may look like the same old Jane and John...but I promise if you pay just a little closer attention, you will see the dreamer Jane or John, the part of them you thought you knew but realize you don’t.  It takes effort.  Heart.  And an unremitting willingness to shoulder the responsibility of an ever evolving love story which requires falling in and out of love with a person who is constantly changing, altering and amending themselves.

Pay close attention or you just might miss the best love story that has ever existed...yours.