Photo by the Author
There's a thought for today on why we use "falling" when it comes to love. Why not rising in love? Or going into love?
To rise would mean to be uplifted because of love and to go into loving would mean love as a pursuit. While these thoughts hold truth, I have a feeling you’ll join me in thinking that the phrase “falling in love” simply cannot be compared nor replaced. These are words that we’ve been marked with, already laced on our tongues for God knows how long, probably just as long as the day since we learned of our capacity to feel beyond what we could comprehend. In short, it is only natural that we use “falling in love” because it’s something that resides in our core—as fundamental as to touch, to hold. To take a breath. To taste.
We think of the emotionally intriguing words by Alan Watts, that "love is an act of surrender to another person." This might sound too much, but if you look at love directly in its eyes, you'll see that love is best experienced when there is no hiding and seeking. You are seen at your fullest breadth—it’s like standing in the middle of an open ground alone and having that person look at you from the far end as your eyes say “I’m here, reach out to me” and they reply with footsteps walking towards you—no questions asked and no resistance.
But you must see too that falling is scary because to surrender is to release and to release means to be true and to be true requires vulnerability—to reveal every dimension of who we are to another person who may or may not accept our entirety. It is allowing ourselves to be held—to welcome someone within the walls of our minds and the home we are looking to build in the future.
Nonetheless, you mustn’t fail to see that falling is different from a love life of toil—of bending over balustrades and jumping through hoops just to prove your worth and to be seen. To be loved means to simply exist, to be true and honest with yourself, and to let the ones who want to see you take a risk before the fall. For that, love is free of ego; it is in loving and being loved completely that we learn what it means to have faith and to be free—enough faith to trust the process and free enough to fall apart and still be loved.
So today, we think of what love means to us and what it looks like.
But whatever it may be, may it speak your language with patience. May it never lie and lose hope. May it meet you halfway with confidence and certainty. May it look like the clearest of blue skies. May it be assuring and direct—like a torch that leads you out of the darkness. And may it stand with conviction—with arms unresting and heart unrelenting. May the love you experience be as beautiful as your happiest days, that even when there are no more words to speak, you'll be left with a kind of love just as beautiful that it's poetry in itself.
So, do fall in love. But before you do, may you walk into it first. And when you take that step before the leap, may your life be forever changed with a love that’s willing to catch you.
