I look at the beautiful gifts I have received in life and I feel a ton of gratitude.  I also feel guilt and frustration.  I look at the things and I cherish them because the people who gave them to me mean a ton and I look at whatever it may be and I see the effort and love—and I feel gratitude.  But I get frustrated because sometimes that isn’t my love language and I can’t always reciprocate with things like that.  Let me explain. I have never required material things to know how people feel about me, but I’ve learned to equate that because so few people have opened up and know the real me.  Instead of taking the time to have the conversation or to spar with me intellectually, they think they are placating me by getting me something or giving in to what I’m saying.  That never really hits home, never really forms a complete connection.  How do we become close with people if we haven’t taken the time to fully know who we or they are?

As I’m getting older, the quality of my relationships is more important to me.  I want to feel and express genuine understanding, love, empathy, and connection.  I’m not interested in superficial conversations and the typical, “How was your day?” bullshit.  I want to know that we are on the same page and that we know the state of emotion as well as how to handle the other person’s feelings.  I’m not talking about wanting to take over how a person feels or assume responsibility for them, I’m talking about the ability to share a space with someone and be willing to witness and possibly assist as we process our state.  I’m talking about forgetting the need to demonstrate our love with material and insincere displays of over the top affection.  I’m talking about feeling safe and seen with someone and trusting that our most vulnerable state is accepted.  When I look at the material, I’m not so sure I was always understood.  What was given to me to silence me?  What was given as a misconstrued desire?  What was given from the depths of the soul—and understanding mine?

Material does not equal love.  There isn’t a physical symbol on Earth that can represent the complexity of our relationships because relationships aren’t always physical demonstrations—they are emotional states of being and can bring out the best or the worst in us.  Love is a difficult thing to describe because it encompasses so many feelings, thoughts, and actions.  It’s hard to show it and we have a compulsive need to express it through physical expression in one form or another.  If we learn to sit with it, perhaps we learn a better understanding of what it means.  It’s amazing that in spite of how challenging it is to describe authentic love, we all know it when we see it.  That means we can learn to be with and learn to express it in a healthy way and to receive it in a healthy way.  I’m grateful to all the people in my life who have demonstrated love in the ways they know how, I do not take that for granted.  I look forward to building this new understanding with them.  I look forward to understanding the real them, to seeing them.  I look forward to continually learning to love me.