rumi; wise sage

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” -Rumi


After watching "Valentine's Day" today with the kids, I heard one Rumi quote and decided that I needed to go read some more of his writing. As it turns out, I'm quite impressed with a lot of what I read. It also goes to show you that good advice stands the test of time. He wrote the above over 700 years ago. 


So it had me thinking. What are my barriers to love? 


In a general sense, I don't think I have many. When it gets closer to the heart on an individual basis, I'd say that I probably have to bring out the sledgehammer and start dropping walls. 


I had an interesting thing happen to me the other day. A guy that I went on a few dates with, nothing serious, and remained casual friends/acquaintances, was talking to me about relationships while we were catching up. We talked about our current lives and kids and the entire conversation was fairly lighthearted, then he switched gears. 


He told me that he knew that I wasn't really looking for a major relationship when he met me, because I did express that to him, but that he thinks that he held back a larger part of himself because he didn't want to seem to smother me with affection. He's a really nice guy, but honestly, there's a fairly larger age difference than I would like and I just didn't "feel" a deeper connection- or the potential for one. 


Then he asked about some of the people in my life now, and asked me point blank how I felt about each of them. When he asked me about one person, my eyes softened when he asked me, "Do you love him?" 


He caught it, and I'm not sure who was more surprised, him or me, that the words, "Yes, I do love him" tumbled out of my mouth with such speed and assurance. 


I'm not the sappy type, I guess, but that marked a first for me. Admitting it to someone else. 


Of course, that knocked down a pretty large and significant barrier within me. I was forced to admit just how much he actually means to me. And forced to live with that realization. So here it is, I do love him. Maybe one day, he'll love me in return again. Until then, I'm kind of happy just with the realization itself.