It’s one thing to fall in love. It’s another to feel someone else fall in love with you, and to feel a responsibility toward that love. ~Author unknown

 Falling in love is fun and terrifying.

The body tingles. The heart beats faster. Life is fuller in one moment and empty in the next. One is consumed by a need and desire that sees nothing but its own desire reflected back in the beloved.

And dropping the curtains to show who you really are because I know for me, there is no curtain. There is only what is strong and real and true.

I know I cannot hide my feelings nor keep them to myself. The unveiling causes one to tremble because who knows if the beloved will love all of you, the good and bad, the neurotic controlling child and obsessive jealous woman.

Who knows?

And then there is the feeling of never wanting to hurt your love along with the insecurities of not wanting to be hurt. Yet every great love knows betrayal at some level in some way. At least that is what time has told me.

How does one do the dance of holding another’s heart in your own while balancing all you know and want and need at the same time?

What I know is the dance finds its feet to the music of the two hearts meeting. It’s slow at times and furious at others. There is the tenderness of finding what is too much and when the words need to end.

There is the faith and trust of knowing the beloved will do anything and everything to keep you happy but in the meantime, you don’t want to do anything to cause any unhappiness while need and desire wrestle and devour each other.

And there are the nights of waiting and wondering if the beloved thinks of you as much as you think of him, if he misses you as much as he claims, if all he says will be true long after the passion dwindles and friendship ensues.

There is falling in love.

And there is honor and hope within everyone who takes the risk to let one’s heart be broken, for only those we love hurt us.

And there is caring for the other with same care one would cradle a newborn for the lover and beloved are as tender as that, and just as needy.

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Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: elephant Journal Archives