08/28/2018 © Rocco Joseph

I don’t want the type of love that can be bought in the store. When six-months after purchased  it’s just left on the floor. I want the kinda love which never gets bored. I don’t want the type of love that can easily be distracted. When to wrapped up in life to give up any of their attention. I want the type of love which always holds and finds my attraction. I don’t want the type of love that still looks for something better. Not content with what it is today, still waiting on the future. I want the type of love which when together makes today so much better. I don’t want the type of love that already holds the answers. That never questions anything or wonders how much there is to know. I want the kinda love which will yearn with me to grow. I don’t want the type of love that is always quick to criticize. Never expressing their sense of compassion with an open heart or mind. I want the kinda love which doesn’t judge me by my crime and will always be besides me to help me serve my time.

What is this phenomenon we experience that we all decided we would call Love? I still don’t understand it or more, can’t explain it with something as simple as using words. I think love is just love when we try to explain it through words. When we were children it was something we’d only experience as it was which we observed. There is love and there is hate and there is everything that is in-between. But love isn’t that simple in my own experiences thus far. In my own heart I can find the source of what’s love. For me it’s in my emotions which I’ve always tried not to feel. It dug a hole deep inside me which I could never feel was filled. You see for some reason I grew up with never being able to experience this thing we call love. Now don’t take this wrong. I was not a psychopath. I loved and cared deeply for everyone around me and took time to express it everyday. But for some reason I would still feel undeserving of their love. I wouldn’t allow anyone to love me! I don’t know why I did this and to tell you the truth I never even realized it until lately. For some reason, even as corny as this is about to sound, I think it is because for some reason I never really loved myself. I always thought that even the phrase “have to love yourself first” was the most superficial, egotistical thing that anyone could say. That is until I reached some sort of breaking point or mid-life crisis. A time when I failed to see any of the beauty that life has to offer and I didn’t care anymore if I was or was not going to be participating within it for any much longer. I allowed the world in which I saw around me determine how I felt inside instead of being who it actually is that I truly am inside.

I still don’t know exactly who it is that I am today but I like him a lot more than I did yesterday! 

So I guess this is where I’ll have to leave these thoughts of mine today. I am grateful to those of you who take a pause in their day by taking the time to reflect and read with me about one man’s struggles and triumphs as he transcends through the perplexing mystery’s of mid-life. I think what I was trying to get to here is my understanding of unconditional love and what it is that it means to me. It is quite simple in definition but feel we all fail to apply it in our everyday life. Basically it means “to love and desire for another without any personal attachment or investment in the result for oneself”. I know it is not easy to do and even harder to completely live by. Finding some love inside for myself along with showing myself just a slight bit of the compassion that I seek in others has helped open up this door for me. It has made my world beautiful again and even added a little more innocence into it that I had lost a long time ago. Life is tough and it is not always fair but the secret for me is in not allowing life itself to change me but to allow it to help shape me. That’s where I stand today because I understand who it is that I am! 

I felt like taking a quick moment here for any of my family or friends who may or may not read my writings. I want to thank those of you who continue to support me through my personal life-long struggles with depression and self-depreciation. Especially more so to my beautiful wife! Who has to wake up each day next to someone new. I can only imagine how hard that is on you and I only wish I could promise you the “perfect life” that I know you deserve. I can not. I can only promise you a lifetime of excellent adventures at the most inappropriate of times and that I will always be here for you whither the seas are calm or rough! And that I will always love you and be true! For the rest of you knuckleheads in my life, I believe that every experience I’ve had so far has been an opportunity in shaping who I have become today. Everyone of you have played apart in the beautiful story of my life. Every tragedy and triumph through my ups and downs rather prideful or shameful I always had you around. It’s in the moments that we are laughing and crying that we figure out what life is all about. Thank you for providing me with a well balance of each! I love you all! Cheers!