This month has five more days in it, and so I wanted to give an update to ‘where I am’ in knowing more about love.
While I haven’t accomplished all my goals to ‘explore love,’ I have been noting when and how I think about the concept. Each day, I’ve had some conscious time and effort put into thinking about how I show love, and when I feel love.
Specifically, I’ve learned that when I think of ‘love’ I am called to remember a LOT of past experiences. Love, conceptually, is a past tense verb, for me. Any of the experiences I’ve recently shared, whether about people I care about, or things that have happened already, and aren’t things I’m anticipating.
Initially, I thought it was a pretty intuitive thing—I express love through gratitude, and sometimes it’s just easier to be grateful when you wait to have a reason to be thankful. Right?
I just don’t think this is the real reason that I’ve shared and thought about love in terms of the past. Rather, I’ve been singling out things that make me feel love—often time through music. Music has a way of taking me back to experiences, people, and places that I otherwise wouldn’t remember as vividly. Love, to me, is a very vivid feeling—you may never know how to explain it but you know when it exists. I think, more than likely, I see love as much more relative to another verb — learn.
I think I often times, previously, have looked at love as being something you ‘achieve,’ not develop. It’s not something you win, but rather something that you work, sometimes painstakingly, to develop. In reading Desmond Tutu’s book this month, I really had a chance to think about what it took for people to forgive those that they had every reason to hate—and the power that came from forgiving people who had hurt their country and individuals in very horrible ways. Perhaps those are the two takeaways this month—
1. Love is something you have to approach as something you can learn. It takes practice, and only in certain places, with certain circumstances, and certain people, do you master the art of loving. This means sometimes you try to love when it doesn’t make sense, or that you love others knowing that they’ll never love you back. It means that you think of love in weird terms…perhaps it’s thanking people, or recognizing simplicity. Sometimes it truly is the little things people do, the extra efforts, that solidify love, and it’s a reminder that love can be a powerful thing to share by doing the smallest things for other people.
2. Forgiveness is a powerful way to build others — and what we do to other people, we do to ourselves. Living an authentic life that we love to live means we give forgiveness to those that hurt our hearts. And to give forgiveness, you have to be able to remove your pride and acknowledge the ‘come-from…’ that is, the part of your story that keeps you from forgiving others.
The examples I’ve picked out the last week or so have been great ways for me to share examples of when I’ve felt loved—and each example has been a different way that I’ve learned how I love and am loved—and hopefully gives me context for my next month—Save.
So, if I were recapping this month and last month — I’ve learned how to control my energy, and thought about how to authentically show and embrace love.
(Source: Spotify)
I remember when Dr. Lehning wasn’t Dr. Lehning yet. Not many of her students now can say that—and I will always consider myself to be one of Dr. Lehning’s students.
I don’t know how to say this any other way—I love HOW Emily loves/appreciates Kansas. Her perspective always keeps me thinking. Her approach and perspective has taught me so much.
I think that my most embarassed moments in the last 6 years have to be when I’ve let Emily down. And, some of my happiest are when I’ve met her expectations. I’m certainly close to several K-Staters, but I’m the professional I am (and the person I am) thanks to Emily’s influence. I can only say that about one or two other people—and I am so thankful for that.
I have often wondered (and wanted to ask) about Emily’s favorite K-State memory. I know that may sound strange to someone, but the memory people choose to share as their favorite says a lot about them (and yes, I try to remember other people’s favorite K-State memory). Several of my favorite K-State memories involve Emily, and I’m thankful that she’s been there for me, through good and bad.
I know there are times I have let her down, but I am incredibly thankful for her. I wish I had her patience, drive, passion, and professionalism. I’m banking on that if I pay attention well enough, I can learn.
(Source: Spotify)
Everytime I visited my Grandparents in Atchison, we watched the Little Rascals. My Grandpa would refuse to watch any television that wasn’t old movies and TV—so we had a lot of Laurel and Hardy, Little Rascals, and the like. These are some of my fondest memories that I associate with my Grandparents, because I remember watching these after having had a complete weekend with my Grandparents. We’d have gone fishing, had a garage sale, ‘worked’ in Grandpa’s shop, had a piece of Grandma’s strawberry rhubarb pie, and explored a bunch of the towns in Northeast Kansas.
(Source: Spotify)
It’s 2008, and I’m at Alpha Tau Omega with Adam Tank, and we hear Whitney blasting out of one of the rooms, and out dances Anthony Carter.
Everytime I hear this song, I remember that night. Anthony, perhaps accidentally, was a mentor to me during my undergraduate years at Kansas State. Even to this date, Carter is a close dear friend.
I hear this and can just see Carter’s spirit come alive. I remember walking with Anthony in City Park one evening when he was ‘my boss’ as the Orientation and Enrollment Program Director. It never failed that Anthony had the right words of advice…I have to admit that I would later try to model my advice off of his…and even in my hardest times, would remember his words above other mentor’s advice. Anthony told me “you never should let someone have control of your heart. Your heart is a powerful thing, and not worth letting someone using it to control how you feel.” Words that I try to live everday.
(Source: Spotify)
I sometimes think of this song in reference to the last relationship I had.
There were a lot of really nice things about it, but I think at the end of the day, it just seemed like it was just ‘passing me by, just wasting time,’ and I think that was what I loved most about it. I think there are some really positive things I got out of it, and I’ve learned to love most of the good things and bad things. They say failure is data, too. I don’t love the person I was while I was involved in that situation, nor to I love how I reacted to leaving that former me behind…but I really love who I’ve become leaving that former version of myself behind.
I love that I now look back on that situation and am able to say that I don’t regret the situation, because I am so glad to not be the person I used to be…and I never would be who I am today without that situation shaking out as it did.
(Source: Spotify)
Whenever I hear this song, I think of my friend Katie. I remember playing this song at a party at my house when I was a senior. I think the party had grown enough at that point that if we played a Michael Jackson song, it would have been ok for people to listen to and appreciate. It didn’t matter for Katie or I. I just remember choosing it, and Katie doing one of her signature dance moves—if you knew her, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
To me, this song embodies everything I love about my friend Katie. Katie asks ‘what if,’ in the most critical way, more so than any other person in my life. She has incredible expectations of her self, but also has this drive to make a difference in her world like no other person I know. I guess in this way, Katie is one of the most consistent friends I have.
Katie would probably acknowledge this as well, but I find her to be my most unlikely close friend in that, we never probably expected it to happen. And, for that reason alone, I think we’re lucky to have the relationship we do. Some of the most important times in my life recently have been things that I’ve wanted to involve her in…and she’s one of the few people that I feel like I’m regularly in touch with now that I’ve left my college friend bubble. From my move to a new job, to some of the more personal changes in my life recently, Katie has been a reliable and important part of my life. And, I can’t imagine not including her in the changes and updates that happen.
I’m glad that I got a chance to visit her in Dallas before she moved, and am excited to get to see her in her new element. Katie is the perfect example of the ‘low stress friend.’ I don’t know how to explain it, other than to say, I don’t think it’s tough for us to reconnect, and we don’t always have enough time to invest more than a phone call or text every once in awhile.
If I had to say what it was that I loved about Katie and I’s friendship is that I can never finish a conversation with her not having felt refreshed. She reminds me that there are a lot of people fighting for good—the same good that I am fighting for, just from a different perspective.
(Source: Spotify)
