Love.

Yup, we've been here before, folks. It's OK, I know it. I am just fascinated by the concept, and honored that I get a chance at a life that abounds in it. What is it that makes us want to love others? To risk our hearts the chance of getting hurt and rejected? Why do we want to put our thoughts/hopes/dreams/fears aside and put the other persons' in first place? To be so selfless? Because we were created this way? Because it's a reflection of how God loves us? ...I've got some real good (and very big!) questions today that I hope to figure out sometime before I leave this earth.

Romantically, I've only ever loved once. And it wasn't a pure, good love, I see that now. It was an oppressive, abusive, emotionally exhausting love that I had mistaken for the real thing. I was fooled: the fake seemed as good as the real. But that's only becuase I didn't know what the real looked like.

Now I do. I have friends who love me for who I am, a God that loves me the way I was made, and co-workers who want me to succeed because they believe in me.

No strings.
No paybacks.
No 'putting me in my place'.

It's amazing. And now I will never be fooled by the impersonator again, I will seek after the real thing in every friendship I have.

The final key? I have forgiven. I will not be a bitter, resentful person - not even about this. For I have forgiven and forgotten, and am moving on...

-Melin