I’ll go for love

 I love my home. I love that I can watch the sunrise in the mountains and the sunset at the beach in the same day. I love the parks in my neighborhood and the diversity of people who walk among them. I love my neighbors, the kids who greet me when I come and go and keep track of where I’m going, Gary who picks up my packages and my apartment manager who happily snuggles my cat when I’m out of town. I love that I can be at my sister’s house in an hour and Julia’s house too. I love my yellow and white striped shower curtain and my marble table that is too heavy for me to move. I love the framed artwork of friends and family that hangs on my walls and the bench in my entryway with drawers that hold pieces of memories too painful to see everyday but too precious to give away. I love my home. 

I have said over and over, I will never move…except for love. The only thing I ever thought could draw me away from all of these things I love and hold so dear was a greater love. 

This year, I fell in love- twice. Once with a tiny baby boy and once with a grown man. Both of these loves left my life suddenly and through no choice of my own and my heart is shattered. 

In the process of falling in love I began to see that if this love were to grow and blossom I most likely would have to leave my home, this home that I love with a bright yellow rug next to the front door and struggling flower buds in the window. And I knew that I could and eventually would…for the first time I found a love big enough to move me. 

But for reasons too complex for this space, that love was taken away…but I wasn’t the same. The space that had held me for so long could no longer hold. I had always said, I will only go for love…with my love always directed at someone else, but what if I loved myself enough to go? What if I was reason enough to dream bigger, to take the risk, to go on a great adventure? What if…