love changes everything, and love has changed me

Love is the most powerful thing a person can experience, give and be a part of. I have found so much love in my life and learned so much about how to give love in each different relationship this past year and a half its changed foundational parts of what makes me, me.

I've learned love through my children that is unchanging, unbreakable, mountain moving, life saving love. It's the most natural love a heart can feel. I don't have to work at loving my children and they don't have to work at loving me. It's natural to want what's best for them, to see them happy, to help them grow. It's natural for them to want to be close to me, to want to make me happy, to feel safe in my arms. It's not always easy to do these things in action, but the desire is natural and usually the action that comes out of the desire is true to what we feel, a sweet sacred love that can only be found between mother and daughter.

I've learned love through my friends that is supportive, safe, fun, relieving love that holds me up when I can't hold myself. I thoroughly enjoy loving my friends and being loved by them. I am so happy to hear their triumphs in careers, in romance, in everyday life and to be the friend to hold them up when those things all crumble or don't turn out like we all expected they would. I'm thankful to be able to be there to offer advice that I have learned from my own failures in hopes that they might skip those painful mistakes or regrets. I'm thankful to be able to be there to just listen and say nothing. I'm thankful to be able to be there just so they know someone around them understands. I'm thankful to be able to laugh with them, drink with them, and watch stupid shows with them. I'm so thankful I've learned who my true friends are and how to love them in good healthy ways that make them feel loved.

I've learned love through Seth that is forgiving, deep, true love that can somehow always make it through. I've learned that sometimes love comes naturally but has to be put into action using very hard work, humility, a lot of understanding and forgiveness even when it doesn't feel good. Forgiveness is one of the biggest freedoms that comes with loving someone and I've never felt it more than in mine and Seth's relationship. Being forgiven in such a huge way has taught me how to forgive huge. I've learned about love that doesn't naturally get through everything (like mother daughter love) but love that works hard to get through everything because the other person is worth it all. It's one of the most powerful ways I have learned to love. I've never seen love push through darkness, and drought like our love for each other has. This to me is what family is and I'm so thankful I have Seth as my family.

I've learned love, finally, through my Andy. Love that is full of fire, love that is romantic, love that is sweet, love that is peaceful, love that is balanced, love that is not self-serving, love that is the kind of place you want to make a home in and live in forever. I've learned just how traditional I really am. I've learned that commitment didn't mean what I thought it meant, and that it is very much something I have inside of me. I've learned to let myself cry. I've learned how to take my walls down. I've learned what I believe living your life alongside someone should feel like and look like. I've learned that this kind of love is simple, its not a struggle. This kind of love just exists. It comes in and makes itself comfortable inside of you and it feels really really good. I've learned that romance isn't something to be afraid of or try to run from, neither is commitment, or actually feeling things. I've learned how to be sensitive and caring again. I've learned how to be open and vulnerable. Andy's love has changed me and healed me. His love has made it possible for me to open my heart enough to learn the lessons I have from all the other kinds of love I experience. His love is the foundation of where all this love has been allowed to grow, and the starting point of me learning to love as a whole person. I am so thankful that even in as much as I have messed up, I am lucky enough to have found a man like Andy and a love like he gives me and inspires me to give back.

Love has been a struggle and a very scary place for me my entire life, but for the first time its become the exact opposite. Simple, and safe. For the first time I feel like I know how to love, in each different relationship. For the first time I feel like major parts of my heart have been healed and changed, and in that parts of my past have been washed away. Love is such a short simple word that holds an infinite amount of power to grow and change a heart. I'm so thankful my heart has been unlocked and softened.