wide.open.love.

to all my old friends--

the ones who watched me grow up,

grow into myself,

and loved me, even though i sometimes like to learn the hard way:

i miss you and i'll always love you.

***

once upon a time, there was a girl who loved relentlessly.

and that girl was me.

i'm not sure when it began--when i started diving headfirst into friendships and loves like they were big, welcoming pools of Jello or marshmallows.  soft places, full of sweet deliciousness.

all i know is that my heart was once left wide open to anyone who would come near.  it was a place where relationship was deep and raw and untamed.  where i saw every person as an opportunity for Love--as if i had x-ray vision that moved far past the exterior and went deep enough to see the Eternal Value of their Soul.

i remember this in 2nd grade, when i went to freedom christian school.  when i held hands with my best friend, rachel, and we picked flowers together in the field near the school playground.  even at that age, i loved her and loved her deeply.  

i remember it in my later elementary school years when i met katie and she introduced me to katelyn and natalie at her church.  the three of us had sleepovers that lasted until 6am.  and over pillows and empty soda cans, we laughed until our sides hurt and our cheeks ached and we whispered secrets about love and life to each other and we knew the others would never tell.  you didn't have to pry those secrets out of me--i willingly handed them over on a Shiny Silver Platter because i knew those Darling Dimpled best friends of mine would always handle with care.

in jr. high, i got hurt a lot.  but i never gave up on the ones who hurt me.  i just wished and waited and somewhere deep inside of me, i knew a broken heart was better than a hardened one.

and high school?  that was the best.  my first love was with a boy named sam who was two years older than me.  one day, there was his smile knocking me off my feet and it seemed like the next we were sitting side-by-side on his driveway at 2am on a summer night telling each other we loved each other.  and those i love you's?  i meant them deep and hard and not for one moment did i wonder if it would be worth it.  because love is love and what else can you do with it besides give it away?

and there was one group of friends, whose wednesday nights held tradition of pizza after church and then maybe--just maybe--some late-night movie or a midnight adventure.

and another group of friends whose Sunday nights were always spent together at this One Family's House.  a House where we played card games and air hockey and laid on trampolines to look at the stars until night turned into morning.  the rooms of that house and the hearts of those people held my secrets and my laughter and their bodies contained the person i always knew was my One True Self.

then, there was a certain Best Friend at my first job at McDonald's.  i went there to learn how to work and instead, he taught me how to live.  how to drive 100 miles away at 11 o'clock at night just to see the stars underneath the clear mountain sky.  and how to hit trash cans with my car because my-gosh, even though it makes no sense, it will make you cry from laughing so hard.

and there were countless others.  those that held me up during evening church services at camp.  that wept right along with me as i re-committed my life to God after running for so long.  there were those that walked alongside me through the hard stuff--through broken families and broken friendships and broken hearts.  and i walked alongside them, also.  and kept them steady.  and bottled up their secrets within the being of myself.

those were the times i loved with that wide open, relentless love.  the kind you see in movies and read about in storybooks.

you see, I am the type of person who loves someone and they love them forever.  and after high school ended, i soon discovered that unrequited love is not just the romantic kind.  friends go away and they forget.  or they become hardened and more a part of a world that didn’t hold its strings to me they way it held itself to them.  and i look back and i'm sure i made some mistakes.  and dwelling times like these make me wonder what i can do to fix them--if only i knew what to fix.  or even more, if there's anything worth fixing.

i keep looking back trying to figure out exactly where our seas were parted differently--They to the left and Me to the right and no solid ground in the middle to keep calling Friendship.

and on this Somewhere on my side of the sea, part of me has given up on that joining together.  i see others on the water and i keep my eyes to my own oar and quickly glide past.  i no longer see encounters as an opportunity for Love, but instead as a Threat.  a possibility for Hurt.  for Harm.  for Leaving in the end.  and the Hurt and Harm i think i can handle, but the Leaving is what gets me choked up and the Leaving is what has hardened this heart of mine.

and so now i keep most everyone at arm’s length.  even best friends that have been there since the beginning.  even Ethan.  sometimes it feels like too much to bear the weight of loving someone so intensely.  i find myself holding back all the parts of myself…seeing the bad in them instead of the good…trying to find all the reasons in the world not to love.  and thus, I have realized, I am missing.out.  missing out by trying to mold the relationships into the Safe Things I’d like them to be, instead of them letting soar high and wild and untamed--just like before.

so i want that all to go away now.

i want

a brand new

wide.

open.

love.

where the i love you's are deep and hard.  the kind of love that spills quietly over others.  a sweetness that is just rare enough so that people can marvel at its beauty, but not so rare that they can't reach out and grab hold.  in my mind, it looks like the secretest of tree forts and like a squishy hug and maybe a shimmering diamond wrapped all up into one.  a Love that isn't dictated by fear, but by freedom.  that is the Love i long for.  that is the Love i long to give to others.

i want that x-ray vision again--to see relationship instead of harm.  to see souls instead of bodies.  to see beautiful memories that are truly worth making...with or without the Leaving.
 

i want the heart of Jesus.

and i pray that He will mold mine into that

Secret Tree Fort

and Squishy Hug

and Sparkling Diamond...

one that i imagine

looks something like His.