During a particularly tumultuous emotional period here, a friend encouraged me to offer compassion and love to everything that entered my life, be it in passing or not. He asked if I had ever reached that point in my life where I could offer love freely and without condition… and it was easy for me to identify it. Maybe some of you reading this were in my life at that time. I had been on a high from finding a faith I could believe and express my heart’s will in. I had the relative freedom of living outside of my parents’ home and a new city to explore and enjoy. I was challenged intellectually at school and emotionally making new friendships and bonds, though I was still naive in learning how to express these new feelings. I laugh now. One day I told a boy I had a few casual dates with that I wasn’t "in love with him” but that I loved him. Haha. Bad move Ashley. I never had a chance to explain that I felt like I could see the goodness within and was so happy to be able to feel that with him. I just felt love and shared it without reservation. Some could accept it. Some obviously could not. (No surprise on what happened in the above example!) But things changed, gradually, as I began to care about whether that love was reciprocated. My worth and love became dependent on who gave it back to me. I began trying to fill holes and "fix people." And so I find myself back in that space of love almost 15 years later. But this time, with no expectations.
There are plenty of instances here in India where the people I wanted most to like me, don’t. For perhaps the first time in my life I can say its ok. Not from a place of roughness or callousness. That’s easy. But I can say it’s ok for them not to give back while still offering love. It’s healing. It’s natural and honest to who I am at my core. This lesson has perhaps been the most transformative. Watch out world… I love you ;)
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AuthorAshley J.E. Hull Archives
November 2017
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