Will I ever be ready to love again?

Some wiser part of myself silently sighs as she rises to the occasion of that question. Of course. Let’s talk about that.

I can’t always hear her whispers inside, but when I can, they’re full of wisdom and love. In abundance. The crackling static of fear disguises her still small voice. The weight of shame remembers those who didn’t see me or receive my emotions. I believe the implicit lie that I didn’t deserve what I didn’t receive. She knows otherwise and can’t wait to remind me.

Your worth is your birthright. You’re made of love and stardust like all the rest of us. My emotional connection to that truth is elusive, though, so she holds it for me when I forget. She’s been right beside me as I asked other tender loaded questions in the past. Am I ready to be a mother? Naïve in my hopeful confidence, I didn’t have a clue what I was getting into, but she did, and walked beside me.

I’m ready to be a mother again. Why isn’t it happening? She spoke through a friend who said You’ll know when you’re done having children. If you don’t know, you’re probably not done. No, I wasn’t. My desire for another child was primal and persistent, tugging on me like gravity, driving my healing for the sake of love. It invited the next soul right into my life, co-creating a wrinkle in time and space I don’t pretend to understand.

Motherhood has taught me most of what I know about the ways and mysteries of how love shows up. A neighbor put words to the speechless wonder I felt when the veil was still thin from childbirth the first time. It’s the closest thing to God, she said. Yes it is, my leaky eyes agreed.

My daughter was like an embodied message that miracles can arrive instantly. That she did, with zest for life itself, mixed with a little fear of being late to the party. Here I am. What took you so long?

My son meandered, like the way he gets ready for bed, distracted by countless delights along the way. All that time provided me an abundance of lessons in patience, hope, loss, longing, trying too hard, and finally letting go. The key was surrendering my need for another child to heal my brokenness, remembering instead that I was already whole in my soul. I forgot and remembered again and again, and then he came. When I first held him, I couldn’t stop saying Hello.

What of that other kind of love, though? I suddenly feel small, asking the question, like that little boy in the Polar Express who said Christmas just doesn’t work out for him. The very word Love evokes associations with something else entirely.

That wiser self knows how pregnant that question is. She could easily say my very wondering is a sign that I’m ready, or that I’m not. I might just believe her either way, because I don’t know. So she invites me to examine the iceberg that question sits on the tip of. Talk to me about your fears.

My fear is restless, jumpy, it wants to talk in circles, in metaphors, in third person. It remembers something it thought was love completely collapsing with a bit of neglect and external stress, exposing secrets, lies, emptiness, cold, and emotional violence inside. As Mary Oliver said “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” I want to ask her how many years, and what was that gift, exactly.

I need to find my own answers, though. I know this. So far, I’ve become an expert on red flags, and my nervous system has rewired itself to account for dangers I hadn’t known existed before. There’s still a live wire or two buzzing around in there, sizzling especially when the question of love comes up. It takes a lot of bravery to get near it. Please stay close, I ask my inner guide. I’m so scared of making the same mistake, and not knowing it until I’m deeper in. I could jump out of my skin.

I’m reminded of Wendell Berry’s words. “The world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles … but only by a spiritual journey … by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be at home.” Must I journey alone then? Relationships have taken me far from myself, and left me lost in the woods, a long way from home. You’re closer than you know. Tell the truth, the whole truth, about how you got lost. That is your breadcrumb trail back.

Okay. Well, I gave so much love, and it wasn’t enough. But I gave from a sense of deficit, like a handicap I was trying to compensate for. My sense of not-enough-ness found something familiar and strange in the never-enough-ness of another. Trying harder only deepened the daily grief of the cycle of pleasing, feeding, longing and needing, without fulfillment. The love all leaked out somehow, without reciprocation. Isn’t karma supposed to bring some back to me? Nina Simone said “you have to learn to get up from the table when love is no longer being served.” My version of that lesson was chasing an illusion of love straight into a brick wall that nearly killed me.

The mere possibility of love brings up the question still burning in my nervous system of what is real. I know my sensitivity remains a wellspring for a deep capacity to love. It has been my greatest weakness, though, making me a target for thieves without the same capacity. I know I lacked the boundaries necessary for safeguarding my emotions, for staying connected inside rather than losing myself, for preserving self-respect. I’ve been resonating with Celine Dion singing about that on the radio lately. Before I can love you, I need to learn to love myself. Before I can trust you, I need to learn to trust myself.

Having healthy boundaries means going slower than I ever have. As Melanie Tonia Evans wrote “an individual with healthy boundary function does not jump straight into a relationship and gamble their emotions, body, heart or money until they have assessed the person’s integrity.” No, I suppose a healthy person wouldn’t, but that’s exactly what I did. I dove right in, quelling my anxiety and soothing my sense of not-enough-ness, completely naïve to how much of my well-being I was risking. I have also allowed myself to be pulled in quickly by the undertow of another’s need for something in me, because I feared losing the connection altogether.

Now I see, if a connection between two people could be so easily broken or diverted, it couldn’t have been very real in the first place. Letting go is easier, and feels more like freedom, when I crack the mirror holding the illusion that there was something of substance to cling to. Boundaries and pacing are necessary for knowing when to sit down at the table when love might be served, and when to get up if it’s not.

The lesson that’s fighting for me to recognize it – again — is the same one motherhood taught me. I’m already whole in my soul. The sense of deficit reflects what I didn’t get, not who I am. There is an abundance of love and light inside. There always has been. There always will be. The silent witness holds that knowledge like a candle, waiting patiently for me to feel the warmth of my own light again. First, I must stop the shenanigans of believing lies that disguise my essential nature.

So what do I do with the wounds from those I entrusted my love to, but wouldn’t or couldn’t receive or reciprocate it? I gather the pieces of my heart, the ones I threw away like candy in a parade, one by one. I may need assistance from people who care for me. I choose carefully who to tell my stories to, I let the kindness shine in the dark places. I recognize if the empathy I need is missing, get up from that table, and trust my gut to find where I’ll get what feeds me. I forgive myself most of all for forgetting my worth. I connect with those who reflect it, allowing those who don’t to go their own way. I don’t curse them, or the way my implicit request for reciprocation was received as a burden. You have your journey. I have mine. Sometimes they align for a while. It hurts like hell when that ends, but goodbye is much better than pretending.

I hold the image in my mind’s eye of alchemy burning away the pain, shame and blame, turning it into gold. The fire burns away the ache of unworthiness, releasing that illusion as often as necessary. I let that gold illuminate my imperfections, making me stronger in the broken places, like a kintsugi vase, recovering the love I gave away, holding the love I already have, and ready to receive that which is coming my way.