People always talk about love as "unconditional."
Turns out, there's nothing unconditional about it.
Even the love shared between family members has conditions put on it. With long-term friendships, there are rules to the game. Boundaries you must respect, actions you have to take, protocol you must follow, lines in the sand you must draw.
People will hurt you. They will pull away. Friends need time to heal and figure out their own issues. Family will say things that they don't mean. Loved ones will act as if they are less than that, loved ones.
The conditions of the love are there, whether or not we're willing to acknowledge them.
You have to call every so often, so the friend knows that they're in your thoughts. You have to say the right thing, so the person knows how you feel. You have to be honest with yourself, to own you role in the disaster that has become normal. You have to respect the facts that face you, even if they tell you that everything you know is based on misconceptions. You have to try, put forth the effort, to go the extra mile, to answer the phone, to reach out. To give.
There's nothing unconditional about love.
Like anything else worth having in life, it comes fraught with conditions.
If only there was a manual for this game.
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4 comments:
I'd like a manual too, but I think that if we would all admit that love is never really unconditional we might not need one after all.
If you have an extra copy of that manual, let me know. I haven't found that unconditional love too but something about that intrigues me
I don't need a manual to understand unconditional love between a mother and child...no matter how old.
and while you are blogging about this you could have been picking up the phone or sending a thoughtful email.
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