Love Just Because

I am a child of divorce.  Not just one divorce, but my siblings and I were put through it more than once.  Without going too deep into how it profoundly affected me because that really isn’t the purpose of this blog, I will say that it sucked.  It sucked being a child who questioned whether or not to grow attached to people and an environment because I never know if “this” was the one I could trust or if “this” would be the one that would be snatched away from me like the last one and worse, finding out that there aren’t any happy endings, just a series of situations that are making me stronger and more guarded.  Then before I knew it, I was an adult trying to shake these feelings and made mistakes while trying to do so.   There are a lot of things that I could say about how my upbringing probably harmed me, like the fact that I felt like pulled taffy all the time, but I don't want to because we all have baggage and mine made me resilient and definitely a person who thinks about my actions first.  It also has made me appreciate the people who love me and don’t have to, which is really what I want to write about today. 

I've been wanting to write about this for a couple of weeks now and haven't found the time. Randomly at 3:00 this morning, I woke up to a Facebook message from a friend who said she's decided to adopt. She wrote a letter to her future child, which had me in tears, and I thought "Ok, I'm writing it. Right now." 

We live in a society that feels safety from placing labels on situations and roles and people and the fact that I bought into all of that when I was a kid is the exact reason I was so lost when I realized that many of them are empty.  Yes, biologically, you should love your children and never leave them. You should take a bullet for your child, but that doesn't always happen and it is not a reflection on you at all if you were stuck with a parent that didn't feel that way about you.  Yes, you should cherish your spouse, but that happens half the time.  It doesn't mean that you weren't deserving of being cherished. Just because people biologically linked to you leave you doesn't mean that everyone will leave you.  Just because someone who vows to love you and lies, doesn't mean everyone will. I didn't always look at it this way because I got wrapped up in the travesty of the situations I had seen, but that's the wrong thing to focus on. If you look around, there are a lot of people who love you "just because" and you'll find yourself asking "What did I do to deserve that?"

Over the years, I have been in awe of the people in my life. The more I understood what TRUE love is, the more I realized that I am completely surrounded by unconditional love and that most of the people around me have no obligation to love me whatsoever. I have friends who love me even when I puke on my shoes because I drink too much, when I have fallen for the wrong person again and again, and who will listen to me analyze my abstract feelings until they are more concrete.  I love them the same way. Just because. 

The more I've learned what TRUE love is, the more I believe in it romantically too.  I have loved giving back rubs without the concern for getting one back. I have known without a doubt that he would always be safe with me, that I would always protect him and be loyal and that I won't get bored because love doesn't have room for that.  I have loved and loved and loved consistently without the thought of what I will get back. I have loved just because. 

Now this is not to say that you don't deserve someone to treat you how you treat them. You should want the same thing, but this particular post is about appreciating those who love you for what seems to be a reason that you cannot grasp, who aren't under any legal or biological obligation, and being aware of the fact that you have been given the best gift God can give. 

I remember being very resentful of the men who liked my mom.  I don’t remember exactly why because I was like 6, I just remember specific things that pissed me off.  Like Jim, the asshole who made me sit at the kitchen table until my milk nearly curdled even after telling him that I was lactose intolerant and that I didn’t drink milk.  I remember his stupid boat.  I remember his stupid life vests.  I remember getting aggravated by men in general, like when I was trying to eat breakfast with my mom at a restaurant and some dipshit would start talking to us because you know, we weren’t trying to eat or anything.  Anyway, I remember never warming up to anyone…..

Until one. 

When my sister, brother and I were little, we used to set up shops on the sidewalk in front of our house.  We lived in a duplex on Prospect, which won’t mean anything to you unless you live on the East Side of Milwaukee.  We sold our artwork and Dixie Cups of water, for whatever reason.  Anyway, one afternoon, a man named Greg Jansen came along and bought one of my sister’s pictures, which hung on his refrigerator for years.  It just so happened that this man was also a friend of my mom’s friend, TJ, but they didn’t know each other. Years later, they were at their friend TJ's annual New Year’s Eve party.  I was at the party as well watching Dick Clark on the third floor.  This man came upstairs and talked to me, which I vaguely remember.  Years later, he finally met my mom and married her and realized that while he had missed some years of our lives, he had in fact, met us and talked to us.    This man became my dad, not because I don’t also have another one, but because he has won over my heart and freed it in so many ways by loving me consistently when he had no obligation to do so.  He didn’t get to me through my mom, he got to me through me, and that was a huge difference in letting him in my life and my heart. I love him more than he'll ever know and I'm so thankful that he's never left me. 

There are people who hang on to titles and traditions and labels and "should be's" but those who choose to be there, who choose to love you even when you are the ultimate pain in the ass, and who choose to make you secure in a world where so much is changing, all the time, should be cherished. They are capable of true love, and there is a certain amount of trust I find myself having in someone who doesn't "have to." 

The bad thing about not appreciating or accepting people like this in your life is that you're missing out on something huge. And I'll be the first to admit that it's scary. I have purposely pushed people away and been an extra pain in the ass just to see if they are for real and see if they'll leave, and I've run away sometimes because I'm scared. But if you can get to the point where you can accept that you're lovable, you'll begin to believe it. If you can accept that that person won't abandon you, you will become more secure. And if you can accept unconditional love, you'll begin to love that way too. You'll love just because.