I chose the dates in the waiting room of my kids’ dentist. I rolled dice and arbitrarily chose dates based on the numbers that showed up with each roll of the dice.

I also had the pleasure of sitting with a Turkish grandmother who didn’t speak any English. We managed to communicate in a female, maternal way that transcended any real words. I used a “bee buzz” sound to describe my middle son, a steady hand / ocean wave motion to describe my youngest and oldest sons and then we “spoke” effusively about the World Cup. “Keeek! Keeek ball! Futbol!”

I will try to keep these posts to less than 500 words. (These words don’t count — ha ha, nor does the quote.)

Here is the quote:

June 6 — Am I lovable? How I answer this question will affect me every day. Today when you live your life (and especially as you relax), do your best to to remind yourself that you are the product of the love of the Universe. See this in yourself and see it in others throughout the day.

Hmm.

A lot of these quotes are bringing me back to my early therapy days. I went into therapy because I was very confused and angry. I also went because I was terrified that I would become toward my children what my mother was toward me. My mother was a deeply complicated and brilliant woman who had many unresolved issues from her own childhood and she un?consciously foisted them on me (because I can only speak for myself). Most of her stuff could’ve been “solved!” with a lot of hard work and confrontation of some serious fears and resentments.

In her presence I remember feeling loved in the commercial sense but unloveable in the functional sense. I was dressed well, had the piano and violin lessons, the art school, the private education and all that, but I did not have the reliability or the selflessness that functional maternal people manifested. As a result, I also felt as though my mother were unlovable because simply, “you can not give what you do not have.”

Moving on…

My therapist said to me, when I spoke of how I felt in her presence: tired, nervous, depleted and sad, that those feelings were likely very much how she felt about herself. That I was an antennae and she was a projector so that when she accused me of something unsuitable, it was actually how she felt about herself but didn’t have the self-awareness or the courage to admit it of herself.

You can feel it with certain people: if they come at you at 90mph (I used to be like that in my 20s and 30s) as a friend, chances are they work for Amway or they are really wanting you to love them because they lack it internally.

Remember what we hear so often on Valentine’s Day and at weddings:

can you do this? with YOURSELF first?

Let’s take weddings and Valentine’s Day out of this, because really: there’s a ton of divorce out there and I suspect it’s likely because lots of people have this idea of what love looks like but really have no sense of how it feels. It’s hard, but can you be kind, open-minded, protective, patient, modest, supportive, honorable, temperate, enduring? Especially with yourself? Because that’s where it HAS to start. You can not give what you do not have.

All those things in Corinthians?? That’s A LOT! Can you work on it? Can you be one of those things every once in a while and try to be more as time goes on? Can you own your shit and not hold grudges? If you’re a silent treatment-er, you have work, a lot of work to do. Get off my bus. That crap does NOT fly in the adult world. (I digress…)

When you plant a seed of love, it is you that blossoms.
–Ma Jaya Sati

That’s what I think is the human embodiment of love: the ability to see these amazing attributes and want to be them and then: share them. It’s like a great mood: when you’re in that zone, you SHINE, baby. If we can do this with just our tribe and then share it with the gal who bags our groceries or the crazy driver in front of us, we are on our way. We are all lovable. We were made of love (even if our parents had no idea what they were doing, it was the cosmic math, the love of God, source, Universe, that decreed our existence, so we are LOVE).

We are lovable when we are able to love. I have this cousin, Allison, who is like a cauldron of love. She snorts like I do, and she hugs in the most amazing way (I could really use one right now — I miss my mom) and she forgives in the true sense: with self-love first. She gets me, the poor thing, but I see how to love better, because of her. (Don’t mind me, *sniff* there’s something in my eye.)

Be the love to yourself and then you’ll be very lovable. You will have your love shield on.

One breath at a time, baby.

Thank you.