Where Is Love?

It's a soft sweet day today.  I remember Valentine's Days when the weather was just as gentle but felt much more prickly and odd, but it was all in my heart. 

Valentine's Day is a loaded day emotionally, equal to Christmas and birthdays.  If you let them, those love-weighted days can sneak up behind you and run you through with loneliness.

There were plenty of occasions when I was left to my own devices, forced to look in the mirror at myself and make a decision to choose something other than sadness and self-pity.  Sometimes, I yielded to that and didn't want anything more than that.  I had a few loops of conversation that would play over and over in my mind, that didn't take me anywhere but into deeper melancholy.  I kicked myself when I was down.  No one had to do it for me because I was so good at it. 

Most other times, though, I did round up some resolve and chose the alternative, which was to get the heck out of my rut and go look for something to do.  I kind of took myself by the scruff of the neck and shoved myself out the door and, almost every time, forgot about being alone or sad and glum.  And I found what I was looking for.  It was in the mirror, in my eyes, within my self. 

We say, "It's all in your head."  But, I also say, "It's all in your heart."  The heart, where courage and inspiration reside, is an infinite wellspring of love.  When I couldn''t turn to another person that I called lover or husband, there was my chance to face myself and say gently, "You have all the love you need right here inside you.  Give it away, and it will never be gone at all." 

If you are alone today, maybe feeling undone by unfulfilled expectations, I say give away all the love, in every way possible at every moment, to every thing and in every place that you go.  Beam it out there.  Blaze with it. 

Sweet baby James Taylor's song says, "Shower the people you love with love."  It's not a bad thing, is it?