“Our capacity to love is not limited; time is a constraint and so is energy, but love that makes your life better gives you more of what you need.” –Amy Bloom
I’m inclined to agree with the fact that our capacity to love is unlimited. Unfortunately, we aren’t typically aware the size and depth of our capacity. In other words, we are able to love without limit, but we don’t typically allow our love to stretch that far. In our everyday lives, we are not pushed to love in true holistic ways that challenge us. It’s easy to love and hang out and relate in surface relationships, but when we are pushed to really love someone in ways that stretch us, then we begin to wonder about our capacity to love. This questioning is especially pertinent when we have dealt with situations that called themselves love but left us feeling anything but.
The last portion of the statement is key – “love that makes your life better gives you more of what you need.” Many things can call themselves love or even dress in love’s clothing, but if you aren’t made better overall (even if it challenges and pushes you, making you better through personal growth) after having been a part of the experience, then I would be so bold as to say that it might not have been genuine love. One of my sister friends recently tweeted that “healthy relationships require honest self-analysis and reflection. They require us to do the hard work.” And no statement has ever been truer. The necessary introspection and attention to self and others in relationship created growth and personal improvement, and this is what gives you more of what you need in life – love.
Time and energy are both valuable resources, but they both come with limits. There is only so much time in a day, and even though I would love to spend every waking moment with my loved ones, we have lives and so time is limited. Even if I live with someone, the nature of life limits our time together. And there are only so many shots of 5-hour energy, cups of coffee, and bottles of Coke before you eventually are worn out and must rest. Yet, when we are open to love, the only limit to it is how much we are willing to give and share. It is possible to have a gallon-sized bottle but only a cup of actual liquid. We all have the capacity to love immensely and unconditionally, but we may only currently have the ability (and willingness) to love out of our own need for love.
I challenge you to search your own capacity for love. Have you ever been challenged to love someone when it wasn’t easy or when it may have been questioned by others? Maybe you’ve been challenged to love in a way that has pushed you to change (ideally for the better) or in ways that have made you have to re-examine yourself? For example, being in relationship with my sister friends makes me have to push myself to be and do the best I can, because they are doing so, and I can’t be a slacker while hanging with people who are on the move. This not only means vocationally, but because of the level on which we relate to each other, that also means emotionally, mentally, and spiritually as well. It means that I allow them to love me in a way that both allows and creates deep intimacy. Because of the love they give to me, I am pushed to love in a new way that pushes my boundaries of trust, emotional faculties, and my view of myself and relationships. I didn’t think I could love and be loved this much in a healthy, authentic way, but because of them, I’ve seen more of my own capacity to love and gained a greater understanding of the capacity of people to love (esp. when informed by the Divine).
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