Love, that hard to define human emotion. We know it when we see it, when we feel it, but it is not easy to define in words. One knows they are truly alive when one loves, when one is loved.
Love is both exhilarating and invigorating as well as terrifying and painful all at the same time. Each of us have developed certain psychological needs unique to us that govern how we relate to others, how we love, our opportunities for love, to be loved.
They say God is love, the pure essence of love. When I entertain the possibility of God, I choose to believe in that God. Yes, my atheist friends, I am a skeptic, but I am also a romantic, I am a human being with emotional needs and I prefer to believe there is a higher meaning to life, even if it is unprovable.
But whether there is a higher intelligence in this universe or not, we all live in this reality, this world, and love is the most tender and generous of human emotions. Yes, often our love is corrupted with selfish motives. We are only human, imperfect beings.
Despite the intense self-hatred I have developed for being gay, a self-hatred created by a bigoted non-understanding world, I have been truly blessed with many many love relationships in my life, precious relationships.
My parents suffered from many neuroses, as do I, but they both have loved me deeply. They could not understand why I did not enjoy the things most boys enjoyed, the rough and tumble life of most boys. I did play ball and other sports occasionally, but I preferred being alone enjoying my books. As a child, my circle of friends was relatively small. I was a sensitive child, easily hurt, especially by my father.
But I never doubted my parents love. I also have two sisters who I know love me and I them.
As a teenager, I did not date girls. "I was too shy and insecure". Of course, I was also physically attracted to boys my age, my dark little secret. I attempted to forget about these "dark" desires by immersing myself in my religion, becoming quite devout and forming a close relationship with my pastor, planning to be a full-time Christian worker as a career.
The first woman I dated was when I was 18 in
A year later I met my future wife. She was gorgeous. She was a shy intellectual like me. She was a devout Christian like me. I quickly fell in love with her. It took her a few more weeks to fall in love with me. For the first time in my life I experienced that deep crazy love only people in love know. That love where you are constantly thinking about the one you love, missing them every moment you are apart. That love where their negative idiosyncrasies are ignored and their positives are exaggerated. Within months, I knew this was the woman I wanted to marry. I was on cloud nine.
Then nine months after we first met, it all came crashing down. She was dealing with some emotional issues from the death of her mother less then three years before (when she was only 18) and she also had concerns about our relationship, including my avoiding a serious physical relationship with her. I kissed her, I caressed her, but "a good Christian gentleman does not take advantage of a woman he is not married to". At least that was the excuse. She broke up with me.
I went from cloud nine to the depths of hell. The pain of loosing such a love, such a future was a deep deep soulful pain. I cried and cried and cried and I do not normally cry (really). Fortunately I was in college and I immersed myself in my studies, and slowly with time the pain receded.
Then after not seeing her for three years, she appeared one day at my college campus - like a ghost out of my past. We talked, but kept our relationship very low key for a year. Shortly after I graduated from college, she asked to start dating me again. I had promised myself she would have to ask and she did. Within three months, I asked her to marry me and we were married six months later.
My wife and I truly loved each other. It was not the innocent love of when we first met. We were well aware of our idiosyncrasies now and we had to "mature" in our love realizing the one you love is human. But, almost immediately, our sexual love was a chore for me, and my wife knew that and it hurt her deeply. "Give me time" I kept saying, but desiring sex with this beautiful woman was like pulling teeth for me. But at least we were both being good Christians.
My wife desired a child about two years after we married, in part, I suspect, to forget about our unsatisfying sex life. Our daughter was born in December of 1984.
Suddenly, my wife and I experienced a new kind of love, a love of our own offspring, a product of our own flesh and blood, a precious innocent totally helpless human being. We experienced a deep sense of responsibility and need to protect, to nurture.
Parental love is the most mature love, the most unselfish love. Only a parent knows this love. Probably the closest a non-parent knows this love is if they have a severely ill partner, spouse. But a baby just needs, needs, needs, wants, wants, wants. They cannot conceive returning affection and love. The joy of parents of a baby is the awe of seeing this little person develop and knowing the influence you have on this little person. But babies are among the most selfish beings on earth.
As our daughter grew, it was not long before she could return that love, by choice. She was "Daddy's little girl" and in big crowds where she was shy and frightened, she would squeeze my hand, the hand of her big strong Daddy who she knew loved her and would protect her. She looked up to Daddy and imitated Daddy. Of course, she also loved Mommy.
This relationship continued pretty much up to when my life took a drastic turn, when my daughter was 13 going on 14. I met my future life partner, not intentionally, but by pure chance. Although my wife and I still loved each other, we both knew we were incompatible, especially sexually.
I experienced for the second time in my life being in love. This time with a man. I was less innocent then when I met my wife, but my emotions for the new love in my life were strong and powerful. This man did his best to help me love myself, to see the beauty I possessed as a human being, as a gay man. His love was as unconditional as a human is capable of.
We dated for a year before we each left our families to start a new life together. I had sought counseling before I left my wife and daughter to make sure I was truly gay and to discuss how to proceed with this relationship.
My ex-wife accepted my partner, almost with relief and was even forgiving I had cheated on her for a year. I am not proud of having cheated and can never justify such deceit. That was the only time in my life I cheated. But I felt worse about what I did to my daughter, now 14.
My daughter loved me so much she tried so hard to understand me, to understand being gay. It was painful for her, not so much I was gay, per se, but that I had broken up her home. I will go to my grave regretting that pain. But my precious daughter told me years later she understood, she and her mother believed I was happier, and the pain I put her through strengthened her. That was a generous thing to say.
But, unlike many people who "come out" late in life, I was able to maintain most of my past relationships, with the exception of one devout sister and her husband. I was lucky.
Once I was out and my partner and I started living an openly gay life, I experienced things I never experienced before. Although to this day I continue to fight my own homophobia and self-hatred, my lover has helped me to better love myself.
For the first time in my life I met and learned to be open with both men and women in a more genuine way. I learned to be tender and affectionate (without being sexual) showing a physical expression of my love for others, men and women. It was so good to be able to reach out and warmly embrace and kiss those I loved. As a closeted gay man, I had those desires, but held back (it's a good thing, I would have been socked in the face).
As a gay man, I have more friends that I love and are loved by then I ever had living in the closet, dear precious friends.
I also experienced a deep compassion for those in society who are outcasts, rejected and treated unfairly. I had joined a generally despised minority, or at least a minority most are uncomfortable with and prefer remain hidden. This compassion is another form of human love.
I quickly discovered the incredible pains my fellow gay brothers and lesbian sisters have faced in this world. But I also saw their humanity, a humanity not different from everyone else. They simply want to love and be loved like anyone else. They are not out to recruit people to some "evil lifestyle", but just want to live their lives in peace and dignity and self respect being honest as to who they are and who they love. Yes, when they see a young person struggling with this, they will try and help that person out of compassion, to help that person avoid some of the pains they faced.
My partner and I are like an old married couple. We fight, we disagree. But there is a deep underlying understanding of each other, a deep soulful unity that two people who really know each other have. Like a straight couple, we need to keep our relationship fresh and not become self absorbed. We need to remember each other and keep our communication open and honest.
Now as a proud father of a 20 year old daughter in college, I watch my own daughter experience the joys and pains of love and relationships. I see the affect I have had on her both before I left her and her mother and after, including her fear of abandonment, for which I am deeply pained.
I have hurt my precious only child very deeply even as most people often hurt those they love. But I have been careful to express my love, verbally, frequently with her and let her know I am here for her, even if I am far from perfect. She is a compassionate caring intelligent beautiful woman with great potential. But, like me, like anyone, she is also a vulnerable human being, capable of being hurt. Even as an adult, my parental heart aches for her and hopes for the best for her.
Love is what makes the world go around; it's what tells us we are alive. But love also can bring the deepest pain and hurt as imperfect human beings try and love one another.
I close with one of the best love ballads I have ever heard that defines love so beautifully, The Rose sung by Bette Midler:
Some say love it is a river
that drowns the tender reed
Some say love it is a razor
that leaves your soul to bleed
Some say love it is a hunger
an endless aching need
I say love it is a flower
and you it's only seed
It's the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance
It's the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance
It's the one who won't be taken
who cannot seem to give
and the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live
When the night has been too lonely
and the road has been too long
and you think that love is only
for the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed
that with the sun's love
in the spring
becomes the rose