It Isn’t About You

By Bernadette A. Moyer

“Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream in their own mind; they all are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, as we try to impose our world on their world.” The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz

I am that person who used to take it all so personally and gets upset when an aggressive driver gives me the finger or some other road rage act. I will say out loud to myself as I drive in my car, “I’m sorry, I didn’t even see you there.” And then I think how that person could get so mad when he doesn’t even know me. If I get cut off on the road, I don’t get angry but most often give the benefit of doubt. They probably didn’t see me there either; they weren’t doing anything to me personally.

They say “perception is reality” if that is how someone perceives it, it is real to them. It took a long time for me to be fully developed enough to know that what everyone says isn’t necessarily the truth. It may be their perception but it might not be mine. I have a friend who is smart enough when he hears things to say, “Well that isn’t my experience.” He doesn’t just buy into what people say but rather what he knows from his own experience. Perhaps more of us should be like him.

Over the holidays, I thought a lot about my family. I spent time thinking about my mother and I pray for her soul every day. I pray that she has peace in heaven and that God has helped her. My mother was many things, like most people with strengths and weaknesses. She was one of the smartest women I know and worked harder than most people I know. She was driven. She was a highly educated administrative nurse with numerous years in all the intensive units of a well-respected hospital as well as a long stretch as a pediatric nurse. She had a zest for life and she loved food and was a pretty good cook. Many people loved her and most people liked her too.

My mother was so accomplished professionally and yet she was also attracted to abusive men. Both of her husbands were both charming and abusive. Their abuse showed itself in different ways. Was she the classic magnet in being in a helping profession? I’ve heard kids say that their mothers should have left abusive relationships for the well-being of their children. Maybe I used to feel that way too and then I realized she didn’t think enough of herself to leave, it wasn’t about her children. It wasn’t about me.

For many reasons I had issues with my mother. She would leave this earth without ever once trying to right the wrongs between us. We didn’t speak for the last 23 years of her life, although I did try. She didn’t want to hear what I had to say. I finally realized, it wasn’t about me, her world and my world collided and she would have had to change her life to accept what I had to share with her. She made her choice and it wasn’t me or my truth. It wasn’t about me, it never was. Yet there was a stretch of time when I was so hurt and so angry with her. I used to think, it was about her not loving me.

When you are a feeling and connected person, you tend to take it all in and onto yourself what people spew at you. It takes a much more established person, someone who really knows their own self to understand that what we take in and onto our self is our own choice.

If you let go of that fight, they are stuck there fighting with their own self. It takes two to fight. The only way to stop; is to understand that it was never about you in the first place. Some people need to be right as the expense of another person being wrong. At a certain point you begin to understand how little value there is in being right, if you are left there, standing alone.

Bernadette on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

We Weren’t Designed To Be Perfect

By Bernadette A. Moyer

We weren’t designed to be perfect! It is our imperfections that make us human. We live and we learn.

The Broken Shell

We are not made to be perfect. Beauty is in the flaws. We are fragile yet strong. Life wears us down at times, polishes us at others. We break in places. We endure. It is the hole worn away in the shell that lets us see inside to its center. It’s beautiful when the inside shows, when it shines.

We weren’t designed to be perfect but rather to be real, to be honest and to be humble. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” John 8:7

No one is perfect. If we want to be forgiven, we must first forgive. What if every person really was doing the best that they could do? What if we celebrated our imperfections?

Often the difference is a minor adjustment in how we view things, how we see others mostly has to do with how we view ourselves. When we can learn to accept our own imperfections we are more likely to accept them in others.

We weren’t designed to be perfect …

Bernadette on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

The Mother Target

By Bernadette A. Moyer

Is there anyone out there who hasn’t had issues with their mother, over one thing or another, not ever? I am beginning to believe that “mom” wears the target and always has and always will. I mean without “mom” we wouldn’t even have been born so surely our struggles are all “her” fault, right?

Mom didn’t love us enough or she loved us too much. She was overly protective and controlling or she didn’t protect us enough and neglected us. I never hated my mother, not ever. But I never really related well with her either.

So what was my beef with her? Initially it was that she just wasn’t very feminine and not the mother I had envisioned for myself. She was tough as nails and often without much class. She was big and loud and boisterous. Yet I was told that these were the things that she became after my parent’s divorce. The woman that married my father was tall and just 105 pounds; the one who got a divorce from him was closer to 300 pounds. So what happened to her?

Later my issues were much bigger when I learned that her second husband was a child abuser. After that there was no coming back to her. She stood by him and I stood alone.

Recently I met up with one of my favorite young people. He is the same age as my twin children. We have a professional relationship but often talk about our families and issues. He loves his mother and I know that she loves him too. But … the little guy that blindly loved her is now a grown up and questions what makes her tick. He is becoming his own man and here comes the natural separation that occurs when our kids declare that they aren’t just our kids anymore. But rather an adult with their own moral code, set of values and ideas on what their life should look like sans any parental interference.

Another friend loved and adored his mother, always did. He talks about her all the time, she has passed on and in his words, “not a day goes by that I don’t think of her.” Yet it took decades before he could confide in her that he was a gay man. He was so worried about being honest with her. When he finally told her she said, “Is it my fault? Did I make you gay?” His response, (I love) “You give yourself far too much credit. No, it has nothing to do with you.”

Mothers are often so accustomed to accepting blame and responsibility for what their children do even when they aren’t little children anymore. How often do we blame the parents? What kind of home did they come from? Yet sit and talk with any parents of adult children and you will soon learn how little if any control mom or dad has when their child reaches the age of maturity.

My son and I have a very different relationship than what I experienced with my girls. We are really close and accepting of one another. Yet I see that same kind of “rub” with his father that I once experienced with my daughters. So is it that mirror image thing? I watch my husband get ticked off at our son for doing the same exact things my husband, his father does. I have to laugh.

Therapists have made a fortune trying to unravel the mother-daughter relationship. They say it is the most complicated of all relationships and can offer the greatest of joy or the most painful experiences of all. I always believed that life was tough enough without at least having a mother. I don’t think I would have been driven to adopt pre-mature infant twins if I thought their life would have been better without any mother at all. After their birth mother died, I assumed the role of “mom.” The mother is the one person who is supposed to love you no matter what you do.

From the beginning of time mothers have worn the target on their backs. The blame game, mom did this or mom did that mom was there or mom never was there for me. It is a miracle that any mother gets it right when our expectations are so high for her. The mother is supposed to be all loving and all giving and all of the time.

How does that work though, when the target of the child’s rage is so often directed at the very person who gave them life and brought them into the world? I don’t believe that anyone’s life is better without their mother in their life. I learned how to live without my mother. I lived without her for more than two decades before she died. I did okay but it was not at all ideal.

My husband always loved his mother and had peace with her. But that didn’t mean that he was always happy with her either. In his words there were times she was “loud and embarrassed him in public.” Yet he always chose love over denial. He never denied her.

When you have little children no one tells you that one day they will grow up and they just might reject you and target you with all their rage and anger. The more I talk with other parents and mothers of adult children, the more I learn just how challenging the mother-child relationship can be and is for so many.

We want “mom” to be everything, virginal, pure, perfect but cool and worldly and educated too. We want “mom” to be everything and more, we want to dismiss her too when she is not in keeping with our “vision” of what “mom” should be and mean to us. What a burden to put on anyone. When I think of it, what right did I have to expect my mother to be more “feminine” if that wasn’t her, that wasn’t her!

The best part about having raised our kids and knowing that they are adults now is in knowing that our job is done. They can love us or hate us, their choice. We know that we did the work. We did the best we could and there are no do-overs. I don’t know if there are any women though, mothers or mothers to be that go into having children with a desire to being the target for their children just because they are the “mom.”

Here is to all the “moms” out there, I know one thing for certain, we all want the very best for our children whether they are with or without us!

Bernadette on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

Why are you eating that?

By Bernadette A. Moyer

Why are you eating “that” are you hungry, bored or filling a void? Is it what you are eating or is it what is eating at you? How many of us are emotional eaters? We eat when we are happy we eat when we are sad and we eat when we are empty inside? Unlike other “addictions” like cigarettes and alcohol where you can just get rid of them we need to eat to survive.  

Every single day it feels like there are a million and one choices. What to have for breakfast and for lunch and for dinner, what about our snacks?  There are just so many choices!

Eating healthy may not always be eating fun stuff. I don’t know of any diets that include cakes, cookies and candy on a regular basis unless they are modified and low in sugars. We have all heard it before “you are what you eat!” But how much of our eating has to do with what is eating at us? How much of it harkens back to emotional eating and trying to literally fill a void?

Some people don’t eat when they are depressed. And others consume even more when they are depressed. We all have diets that work for us and others that aren’t good for our genetic makeup.

Personally I do well with a high protein low carb diet if I want to lose weight. And ultimately that means moving away from everything I grew up eating and loving from my Italian heritage.  Pasta, pizza and bread don’t make the cut if I am serious about losing weight. I can feel it almost immediately with a full belly when I consume those kinds of carbs. And I can feel the transformation when I eat a high protein and low carbohydrate diet.

How many times is food tied to our social events? Almost always or so it seems …right? My husband can’t enjoy the movie house experience unless he has the popcorn that he feels goes along with it. Foods represent holidays and changing of the season, food is love and food is life. But the truth is there are many foods that just are not good for us, period.

We all know there is no magic bullet and that it is an ongoing challenge to maintain a healthy diet and a healthy weight. But I would be willing to bet for many that are significantly overweight it has a lot more to do with what is going on emotionally and the voids they have inside. I would also be willing to bet that when our hearts and souls and our heads are in a good place our diet almost always follows suit.

Like most things being fit and eating right is what we do for ourselves. The question I have asked myself with my New Year and my resolutions is, “why are you eating that?” And if I can’t come up with a good reason then it never passes my lips. For the first week of this New Year I lost 10 pounds just by reducing my carb intake, now comes the real challenge if I want to see significant results. I have a goal and I have a date and most of all, my head, my heart and my soul are all aligned and in a good place.

So for the next leg of my journey it won’t be about what is eating at me but rather about what I am eating and how the food I consume adds to my overall sense of wellness!

Happy food, happy diet and happy transformation for 2015!

Bernadette on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

Arrested Development

By Bernadette A. Moyer

Arrested development has been defined as “an abnormal state which development has stopped prematurely.”  To me that is exactly what estrangement does, it is an abnormal premature ending to both the development of the relationship and the stopping prematurely of the relationship.

My relationship with my mother ended abruptly when she was in her early 50’s the age where I am at in my life now. I would never know her in her sixties and her seventies until when she died. We lost decades of interacting and history that was never to be. I have health questions and as I face my own “change of life” it would have been nice to have that family perspective and family history.  Obviously I know my birth date but not the time of my birth. There are pieces missing from the puzzle. There are pieces that only a mother would know and would have within her to share.

My kids would miss out on their grandmother and in knowing and seeing my family and our roots and history.  My daughter estranged at just shy of her 18^th birthday, she will have huge voids in her life as well. Voids that just may contribute to a state of “arrested development.”

We often replace that which has been lost to us; I have “other mothers” and “other daughters” that have filled many of the voids. Those relationships are highly valued loving relationships. However, nothing can truly take the place of the woman who gave you your life or who you gave life.

Today I read a piece about “Things That Will Disappear In Our Lifetime” the list included; the post office, the check, the newspaper, the book, the land line telephone, music, television and even privacy. We all grew up with these things.  But is family on its way out too?

Many of us will face our futures without our adult children, kids that we raised that decided we weren’t important or worthy. My estrangement support groups continue to grow in numbers. Parents are sharing their stories and many are no longer embarrassed by the estrangement of their adult children.

Many parents have been forced to live without ever having an adult relationship with their children. The most common things you hear is that the kid’s state 1) abuse 2) control 3) no control 4) stalking and 5) disagreements over issues. The adult children feel justified in dismissing mom and dad from their life.  Often taking the next generation with them, and leaving the next generation without ever knowing their grandparents and therefore their family history and their roots.

I’ve heard stories where parents call to tell their adult children that they” love” them and days later receive a legal “no contact” order in the mail. There are adult children that regularly use the law to distance themselves from the very people who gave them life and raised them, their own parents. It is surprisingly common in estrangement. Family courts where children literally want a “divorce” from mom and dad.  Kids accuse mom and dad of all sorts of things to justify their choice of estrangement. Some are founded and many are deemed unfounded.

What is the real cost though to “abnormal premature ending” of family relationships, namely parental?

How does that adult child continue with normal maturation and life experience when they have chosen a form of “arrested development?”  How well adjusted can you possibly be when you don’t have peace, love or any relationship with the people that raised you, cared for you and parented you?

I really believe that to hate your mother, is to hate yourself because that is where you came from. Anyone that has the power to disregard their past will disregard most anything in life. If you don’t value your own mother, what will and do you value?

As a daughter who felt I had no choice due to sexual abuse in the family to sever ties with my mother, I was acutely aware of the cost. I knew the voids I had and I did my best to fill them with healthy relationships. Some voids would never become filled. What I did have though was a husband that always loved me. And a desire to forgive and move past it, learn from it and continue on without adding any more hurts.

I have often said, “I had to do so much more that most people just to feel normal.” That was my response when people told me “you are so accomplished” or “your life is so interesting.”  I knew the holes I had and all the wounds that I suffered. I did my best to heal and to minimize any “arrested development.”

Many parents have lost a big piece of themselves when their children have made the choice to exit their life. Some talk about the loss of a “will to live.”

But what about those adult children, what have they lost? All their reasons and the rationale, their stories and excuses aren’t going to make up for the abnormal premature loss of parents. Somewhere “arrested development” is sure to show itself.

What will they use to fill their voids? Will they make healthy choices? Or will they medicate their feelings away? Could these same adult children hold up to the yardstick they have chosen to use to measure their own parents?

It is in many ways a throw- away society with disposable everything, sadly many have chosen to devalue and throw mom and dad away too. It will be interesting to see what history does with these adult children and how their own relationships with their children will fare for them when they themselves have set the example.

How many of them will have children that will follow this parent and model those same behaviors. How many will suffer from some sort of “arrested development?”

Only time and history will tell …

Bernadette on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

Dear Estranged Adult Sons and Daughters,

This open letter is for you. Every single day I hear from mothers and fathers who are grieving your loss. They can’t imagine how this happened and how the son and/or daughter that they loved and raised could so easily dismiss them from their lives.

For almost 17 years now my child has been estranged from me. She left home as a teenager. At one point she was the absolute love of my life. I would have died for her, period. I wanted more for her than what I ever wanted for myself. When she was growing up many friends shared with me that they wished they had the kind of relationship we shared. I really believed we were close, very close. I never dreamt that one day she would walk away and never turn back. Nor did I ever comprehend her hatred and deep desire to hurt me.  More than 15 years into the estrangement and she still tries to hurt me.

When children are little they are easy and often their love for us comes easily. When they grow up they begin to judge us. I can say that I have letters in my child’s own handwriting that told me how much she loved me. I can say that she attended numerous proms and the one time I could not go to the dress shop with her, she shared this dialogue with me; “Mom all my friends were bringing me dresses, lots of dresses and none of them were right for me. Then I asked myself “what would my mom do?” and “I knew that you would look for an ivory colored gown and as soon as I realized that, I immediately found the perfect gown.”

I share this because it was unsolicited when she shared this with me. My sense was that although I had to work and couldn’t make the appointment she had at the dress shop with her girlfriends, I was in essence there with her! Yet not long after this she would estrange.

For more than 23 years I was estranged from my own mother. What did my mother do to me that I felt this was an appropriate thing to do? It was confided in me that my mother’s husband was a sexual abuser. I believed the child that shared this and I never wanted my children around him after this information was made known to me.  My mother didn’t want to hear it or to believe it. It was easier for her to make me out to be a bad person rather than face the truth about the man that she married and stayed married to until he died. She loved him above all else. I was eliminated from the family. And I made it easy for her to do this by walking away.

Regardless of how justified I thought I was in removing myself and my children, this was not an ideal situation. I was angry and I was hurt and I was disappointed in my mother. This lasted for many years until I came to peace and acceptance.  We never reconciled before she died. My sisters would decide to delete my existence from her obituary. Today I have more peace than ever before, I know that she knows the truth now.

Regardless of the details of my story I am here to tell you that there are no winners in estrangement. As justified as you may believe that you are in estranging from your parents, it is not healthy. It is not normal. It is not an act of love. If anything it is an act of intolerance.

The saddest thing for you is that if you have children, no matter their ages and or how close you may be at this time, by virtue of the fact that you have chosen this, you have now modeled behavior for your own children.  They are very likely to dismiss you from their lives the same way they have witnessed you do it to your mother and/or father. Believe it. Case studies support this.

What you are in essence modeling for your own children is that 1) parents aren’t important and can be easily erased from your life 2) disrespect 3) silent treatment 4) judgment 5) lack of tolerance and lack of forgiveness. What you are losing is your roots, your family history and heritage. If you are a biological child you miss out on your family health history. Your children are missing out on knowing their family and their grandparents. Lost years can never be made up.

I believe that most all parents love their children. Maybe it isn’t perfect but they aren’t perfect and neither are you. No one is perfect.

If you are estranged because of what you have done you should try and make amends before they die. As bad as it may be, most mothers and fathers are loving toward their children. If you do the work and fix what you broke they will probably at least try and forgive you.  And if for some reason they can’t at least you will know that you tried.

Like many of you I have other relationships that I created through the years, I have “other mothers” and “other children” that I have loved and have loved me too. They have helped me to heal and to fill many of the voids. But the reality is that no one can take the place of our birth parents. That history cannot be re-written. And our children come from us. They are a part of our being and our souls and our hearts are forever connected.

Do you need to be “right?” or do you need “peace?” Loving ourselves allows us to love others, loving our parents is an extension of self-love because whether you like it or not, that is where you come from.

No one said that you have to see them every day, no one said you have to speak with them every day but having peace with your parents is what you do for yourself. Remember one day your child will grow up and they too will judge you. Could you measure up to the same yardstick you have chosen to use to measure mom and dad? Would you want your grown adult child treating you the same way that you have chosen to treat your parents?

It’s not over until we take our last breathe. Making peace with your parents is making peace with yourself. Forgiveness is the gift that you give to yourself!

Make 2015 the year of love and of forgiveness and watch how much better your life becomes when you aren’t holding onto anger or ill will toward others.

Peace and love,

Bernadette A. Moyer

Bernadette on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

Or e-mail and connect at bmoyer37@aol.com

New book ALONG THE WAY includes this article at http://www.createspace.com/5705583?ref

The Capacity to Love

By Bernadette A. Moyer

Does everyone have the capacity to love? And how much of our capacity to give and to receive love has to do with how we feel and think about ourselves? Do we learn love? Or is it something that we are just naturally born with?

Does love beget love and hatred begets hatred? Can you love yourself if you hate the very people that gave your life, your parents? You come from your parents, so doesn’t hate for your parents the same as hating yourself? To hate your child, is to hate yourself? Are we capable of loving everyone? Or do we have a type?

Is the opposite of love, hatred or indifference? What makes love grow and what makes love turn? How much of our ability to give and to receive love is predetermined or predestined? Can we change our own capacity to love?

Lots of questions I know, it seems like some people are just better at love than others. Some people naturally seem to attract love while others seem to have difficulty finding and keeping love in their life.

I am more and more convinced that the relationships we have with others is directly related to how we feel about ourselves. To love another, you must first be able to love yourself. The longest relationship we will ever have is with ourselves.

“And I think real healing — healing that lets us hold ourselves and the injured parts of the world in our hearts, healing that teaches us how to live fully, comes from intimacy, from the ability to be with what is no matter how hard.” The Dance – Oriah

“Many Christians get mixed up about what love really is. They know they should love God and others, but don’t understand that loving yourself is one-third of God’s equation. Instead, they mistakenly think of it as being selfish or egotistical.” Love Out Loud – Joyce Meyer

I believe that all things, all things are possible with love just as I believe that without love we are disadvantaged. Loving ourselves is the first step to opening the door for others to love us too.

More Love, Lord

And this is my prayer: that my love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that I may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ.” PHILIPPIANS

If you would like to respond to any of the questions above or have your own thoughts and would like to share please e-mail Bernadette at bmoyer37@aol.com

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

More Fun Times … Please

By Bernadette A. Moyer

We just enjoyed the best holiday season ever! We had so many fun times. We set out for fun and we found it everywhere. We had fun in our home and in our neighborhood we had fun on our day trips and on our holiday vacation.  We had fun with our friends and with our family. It started out as a mindset and then moved beyond to our actions. We were determined to have a fun filled holiday season and we achieved it.  

It was a conscious choice and a decision that we made and the more fun we had the more fun times we found! During our road trip and during our hotel stay I vowed to wear my white fur lined snow flake tiara every place we went and I did. People were always smiling at me and commenting to me “how happy I looked” and I was happy!

After a while I would forget that I was wearing it and my thoughts were “the people here are so nice and so happy and they are all smiling!” But the truth is/was they were smiling because when they saw the snowflake tiara you couldn’t help but smile.

The take way for me was that we put into motion how we will be viewed and how we will be received. We do this by our own actions and how we present ourselves to the world. Whoever waited on us during our recent trip to Nashville when I wore that tiara out and whether we purchased gas or were eating out or just walking around received us with joy and with smiles and with their own happiness.

My snowflake tiara brought me so much joy but it also set the stage for others to smile and to laugh and to communicate with me. We had so many fun times! Now all I can think is more fun times … please … and where will I find my next tiara, for the next season or holiday?

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

When the “Bill” Becomes Due for Love

By Bernadette A. Moyer

All of our relationships end one day, they leave or they die but sooner or later the “bill” becomes due on what our relationships cost. Just weeks ago a dear friend lost her childhood friend of more than 50 years. They have a huge amount of history and in her death my friend is “paying” for all that love and friendship. She misses her friend terribly. You don’t replace or make up for a 50 year history with anyone.

When we marry we state “until death do us part” and sooner or later when death arrives we will fully understand that statement. In marriage we build a life with our partner and often we can’t imagine our lives without them. We want more. Few people are really ready to lose a life partner unless they have been ill for some time and death is viewed as merciful.  There is a price to be paid for the love and often it is paid in our grief and the void that a lost spouse and life partner and loved ones leave with us.

People leave our lives and sometimes it is a good thing as it frees us up for other people to enter our lives. Sometimes departure creates an opportunity to learn and to grow again.

To love any living being is to open up our hearts as we give, we engage, we invest and we relate. We were the parents that were invested in our children. You don’t get that back, the years and years of giving and the huge investment of time and treasure to love a child. When I remember my husband with his twins, I remember the time and the energy and the commitment he gave to love and care for them.  He never missed a soccer game or a scouting event. When they weren’t driving and took on pool jobs he became a pool operator so that he could work with them. After a crazy busy work week he would give up his weekends to be with them.  His actions in being there for them showed his love.

Most widows understand in their grief and in their loss that loving another comes with a price and one day that “bill” becomes due for love. Love is costly and yet a life without love isn’t really worth living.

I love many people and I love many things.  I invest my time and I care for them and about them. We love our dogs, they bring us joy. But they are work and a commitment and come with their own costs. In a few days one of our dogs will require surgery. It is costly but the expense is even greater in the love and the care we expend for her. One day, we know and we hope it won’t come for many more years we will lose her too. The average age for a dog of her breeding is 15-17 years. She is 5 now. One day we know that we will feel the loss that she leaves us with when her time comes. Yet we love her so much, she is such a big part of our lives.

A colleague and friend suddenly passed away after Christmas and before New Year’s this past year. No one expected him to die. The void he will leave is tremendous. He was loved by many. The cost of knowing him and loving him will be felt by the many voids that he leaves behind. When someone is so full of life, you can’t imagine that they could ever die and yet they do.

When parents give life to their children they can’t imagine a life that doesn’t include them, we imagine our children are forever. It has been said that there is no greater loss, pain and heartache than when a parent loses a child. Loving a child is the most pure form of love. A love where we give and we give. When that love is lost by death or by departure we feel that void. The paycheck we experienced was in the relationship and the “bill” often comes to us when the relationship is over. We pay with our grief and we pay with the huge voids they leave in our lives.

We cry and we grieve for ourselves because so often we are selfish and we want more, yet every relationship is a gift.  In the relationships that make us feel good and alive we want more of them.  To love is to be courageous; it takes courage to open ourselves up and to love. We risk it all never fully appreciating the cost until it is over and it ends. Yet we know that in life everything has a beginning, middle and an ending. We know going in that one day it will end.

Love is fragile and it can be broken, love can also be mended and repaired. Real love never dies it may transform us and take on a new shape or new look but it lives on inside of us forever. Love as much as you can and love as often as you can for in this lifetime regardless of the cost and even when the “bill” comes due, love is the only thing that truly matters and has any lasting value.  And love is always worth the price, no matter the cost.