I’ve looked at love from both sides now

From give and take, and still somehow

It’s love’s illusions I recall

I really don’t know love at all
- Joni Mitchell

I’ve been searching the archive of my emotions, looking for the root source of the notion that love is easy. Romantic comedies and new age bookstores. Glossy hopes, like my prom picture and all those journals I burned. Smiling martyrs and serene Saints.

Love. Just love. Love makes it easier. Just love and it’s easy. Easy. To Love. Love flows. Love graces. Love doesn’t grind. It doesn’t wince. It doesn’t lug. Love ain’t heavy. Love is light.

Right?

Somewhere in all this I got snagged and questioned my capacity to love. Thinking that if I was resentful, or felt burden, or a little on the crank whilst I was dishing out the love, then it wasn’t … love. It was faux love, pseudo Buddhist, fallen Catholic, contrived agape. Unlove. Not quite right.

Wrong.

It’s still love. Jagged, cranky, lip bitten, heavy sighing. On delivery, it becomes love.

It’s the intention that reaches.

The surmounting that teaches.
Good, hard, real love.

Danielle LaPorte is the outspoken creator of The Desire Map, author of The Fire Starter Sessions (Random House/Crown), and co-creator of Your Big Beautiful Book Plan. An inspirational speaker, former think tank exec and business strategist, she writes weekly at DanielleLaPorte.com, where over a million visitors have gone for her straight-up advice — a site that’s been deemed “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality”, and was named one of the “Top 100 Websites for Women” by Forbes. You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter @daniellelaporte.