Letter 13: Love is a purifying knife

When you think of love…

Do you think of joyful moments? Shared intimacy, kisses on the cheeks and lips, gifts that make you gush or even shed a tear?

Do you think of cuddles and inside jokes? Of comfort and warmth? Do you think of shared experiences that feel like home?

Do you think of sex?

Do you think of a person? Your family, your friends, or your community?

Do you think of love as a state of being, a feeling you could stay in forever?

If you think of these when you think of love, then you are right. But if you’ll allow me, let me share what I have come to understand about LOVE.

Love is the gentle hand that soothes yet grips you by the throat.

It is the healer and the wound.

The whisper that calls you home and the scream that shatters your comfort.

Love builds walls of sanctuary only to tear them down.

It is the freedom and the surrender.

The wind that lifts your wings and the gravity that pulls you back to earth.

Love is the gentle summer breeze and the violent storm that uproots everything you thought you knew.

Love is a purifying knife.

True love doesn’t coddle our egos or keep us comfortable. Instead, it breaks down the walls we’ve spent a lifetime building to protect ourselves. It causes discomfort, sometimes soul-wrenching pain, and leaves us exposed in the rawest way.

And yes, it hurts—it hurts like hell.

Just imagine: you are fine on your own, and then you meet someone.

At first, it’s amazing. There is warmth, happiness, shared connection, and intimacy. There is great sex and even greater conversations. Until…

The cracks begin to show. You start to realize things aren’t perfect. You’re exposed to the complete truth: perhaps you don’t have the capacity to love this person. To be as kind, patient, caring, or understanding as they deserve. Or worse, you find yourself on the other side, unable to receive the depth of love you know you deserve because of the other person’s incapability.

Sometimes, these cracks widen into a gaping hole, one that pulls you into depths you never envisioned, never planned for, and never wished for.

Why did I say that mean thing?

Why did I lie?

Why did I leave?

It all comes from a place where you truly want to survive. Nothing hurts more than being shown the ways in which you’re incapable of giving or receiving love.

But hey, plunge the knife deeper.

Love doesn’t stab the places that are wonderful and good. True love doesn’t pierce the parts of you that shine; it strikes the parts that need work. The parts you don’t want to face, or perhaps the parts you’re painfully unaware of.

Love will stab, and then it will purify. I hope you make it to the purification stage and don’t live with the open wound.