The four page love letter I should not have written

At a counseling session, this young lady who could not be any more than 20 looks at me, and  judging by the book that I was reading- The Art of War-, she tells me, "Forgiveness is for you, you know. You need it more than the other person. The bitterness kills you more than it hurts them" I gazed at her, mouth gaping open stuttering who knows what.  A difficult time to fight back. She knew the supreme Art of War and she subdued me with mere words, and the element of surprise. I have been questioned before, even counseled at length about forgiveness and it stuck; so hearing her utter those words with such inspiring confidence was almost like the infamous saying, 'Same shit. Different day'. I later gave a resounding laugh as my response and then took my seat. The Art of War had nothing to do with forgiveness. It was about something completely different. She didn't understand why I was reading it, and I was not given to lengthy explanations to prove a point. Far from the fact that I had no interest in keeping the conversation going, she smiled so many times it was starting to freak me out. Why was I there in the first place? Counseling was unheard of in my neck of the woods- unless of course I was taking a swing at marriage, and I wasn't. The beauty of this whole variant experience and my reason for being there in the first place couldn't have been anything other than love. That "weird whatever they call it these days" was knocking me out of my comfort zone and daring me to do some of the darnedest things I have ever done in my life. Being on the giving end of unrequited love can be- if nothing- frustrating, confusing and your mind is always in a state of wonder, and eternal hope. The latter would not be such a bad thing if not for the endless chain of frailty it puts you in. We have all had that one person who made us feel like we were not good enough no matter how good we were. That one person who made us feel like we mattered when we were just their last maybe, and 'if all else fails' option. Boys do it . And the ladies are no different.

 Deep down we each have an evil twin who takes over who we were really created to be. Time hasn't changed but the times have changed and the beauty of love often escapes us because it is unlike most things we come to meet in the world. Love is not just kindness, or beautiful sensations, or butterflies floating around in the acidic pits of your stomach. For the record, a butterfly can't survive in your stomach. Moreover, those butterflies can be wasps. When your stomach flutters and your hand shakes and your cheeks flush, sometimes it's not love. It's pain. Accept it. Know well.

On the summer of a certain year- which I will not mention- I found myself at the mercy of such unusual sentiments. For those of you who have read my Sunbeams on a beautiful day, it was the edited version of the 4 pages. When I began writing the letter, every nerve in my body writhed in agony, pleading with tearful cries "Ebenezer, please don't do it" I listened and wrested but finally agreed with them. Eventually, when the thought occurred to me again I bowed my head and started scribbling anyway. I took me all about a week; collecting memories that I deemed worthy of the occasion and sampled them together with well orchestrated 'lines', strategically positioned with one goal: to make me look like a knight in shining armor. Last week, when I came across the letter for the first time in many months, I read it hook, line and sinker whilst munching on some crackers a friend had purchased for me. The first thoughts that surfaced, surfed along the lines of mere stupidity. But as I pondered, I realized how far I had come since I closed that chapter of my life. I began to understand that I was a knight in shining armor; just not hers. The beauty of love is not the harmony of reciprocity. The beauty of love- what makes love so desirable- is the giving. Letting it flow from within entrails, and the innermost parts of your spirit. Love is divine. No matter how good you are, and how well you love, the amount of love you receive will never be the same. By God's love we understand and know that we can never love Him the way He does us.  I think that we waste time trying to understand love because it's difficult to accept something you don't understand. More importantly we don't accept the love we don't think we deserve. I will end today's session with a simple question. To love is to choose. It is a choice we wrestle with in the chambers of our mind, and finally we decide. The question is, "Does anyone deserve to be loved?"