“Mature love is not caught up in a fantasy. It is willing to see someone for who they are and choosing to love them fully.” ~ Thema Davis

The man, who cracks open your heart and breathes crazy life into your wildest dreams, deserves to be loved for the man he actually is, not for who you wish he was.

It’s easy to look at someone and see their potential, possessing some of the qualities we are looking for. It’s tempting to add and subtract ingredients until it seems this man is precisely who we have been looking for all along.

But this man, whether he is bound to us or not, deserves to be loved exactly for who he is.

Look at him. Do not focus just on his light, but his shadows, because it is here that we can meet him in radiant acceptance. It’s here, where darkness and cobwebs linger as memories against the fallen sun, where we can dance with him. Kiss his scars and show him that the marks he’s tried to hide, make us love him all the more.

The thing is, this man is exceptional, not because he is infallible but because there is no one else like him in this world. He deserves to be admired simply for the man he is now, not a work in progress or fixer upper.

To love someone purely and intentionally is to know that the only choice we have is to accept them for all that they are or not at all.

We can’t only choose the bits and pieces that make us comfortable or that fit our image of how a lover should be, because regardless of how we see him, this man is exactly as he is supposed to be in this very moment.

Just as we are.

Love isn’t about change, but about acceptance.

Love is a feeling of butterflies and home. It tastes like the electricity emitted from summer thunder storms and feels like the intoxicating pull of the tides. The best part is, love does exist.

A love like this is real but in order to taste its sweet arousing complexity, we first have to realize that it’s not the job of our partner to be who we want them to be nor is their job to reflect an image that makes us comfortable within the confined borders of the expectations of others.

This love is found by letting our wild side roam free amongst the blackened hills, creased with the knowledge that none of us are perfect but that we deserve to be loved as though we are.

This man may not always make it easy for us to love him for who he is. The thing is, if we are unable to do that, then another woman will.

It’s not about protecting what is ours. If we are unable to be present in the moment and appreciate someone for who they are, it simply means that they aren’t really meant for us.

We should never have to talk ourselves into loving or respecting this man because if it doesn’t come naturally then perhaps it was never meant to be at all.

Possibly this man is someone who is convenient to love, or maybe he is just a fallen warrior. His life has gotten the best of him, hanging his head in bitter defeat against following his brain instead of his heart.

He might be the best thing that has ever happened to us. But if we continue to struggle from swimming upstream against his unique flow of consciousness, then maybe it’s because we’re more in love with who we want him to be than the man he actually is.

To love someone for who they are means taking off our rose colored glasses, our heavy cape of expectation and fear that have more to do with us and less with the man he is. It means realizing that if we can’t meet him in the place of blinding truth then perhaps it’s best to kiss this sweet man goodbye and travel away from his warm beating ripe heart.

But, if leaving seems impossible, then the thing we must do is love him exactly for who he is in this moment. It’s a choice to love this man purely as he is, because his surface may be stunning but it’s his depths that are most memorable.

He’s not perfect, but neither are we, we just have to decide if we’re perfect for each other.

Choosing to love this man means not closing our eyes to the difficult parts but instead offer our patient and tender hand, letting him know that regardless of what stains his history, we see them as nothing more than splashes of paint, making his life even more colorful.

It means making the choice to meet him—not in the realm of impossible, but in the land of reality.

At the end of the day, it’s not about fairytales or sweet words that drip in honey, but in the unique and powerful connection that occurs when two people choose each other, not because they have to, but because not choosing one another is impossible.

The most courageous thing we can do is to simply make the choice to love him exactly as he is, knowing that who he is will always be just enough for us.

And this will be the beginning of everything.

~

Author: Kate Rose

Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock

Photo: pixabay