SHARING LIFE

     The truth is that loving someone can be excruciating. It is not all rose petals and rainbows. When we are hurting, or the one we love is hurting, there is a brutality to the rawness of emotion that simply doesn't exist with run-of-the-mill others. The love connection we feel becomes exactly the thing that makes us ache. We share each other's pain, just as we share each other's joy on better days.
     Maybe as much as anything, love is caring enough about someone to be willing to go through anything with them, to share it all, the whole ride, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and to trust life enough to not keep us stuck too terribly long in any one zone. We can take our share of pain. We can get through things little bit by little bit that we could never swallow whole. And even in the worst pain, there are moments of relief, of quiet, a ray of evening sun come shining through the window. And it seems like it will never end, never be better, never be right again, but it does end and it does get better. It always does. And we have to hang in and hold on and wait and breathe and love with all of our hearts. There's nothing else for it. Hurt and pain are a part of the journey. When they show up, that may be when we need to love each other the most.

I don't have to run away from pain or be afraid of it. Sometimes the most difficult situations bring the greatest blessings in the end.