When I fell in love with Duckfish I didn’t know how difficult it would be. It wasn’t easy for me to be a loving and kind person when I was processing the guilt and grief from my husband’s suicide. Even now, I wouldn’t say being in love is easy. Duckfish is away a lot of the time and the distance makes it difficult to stay connected. And we aren’t married either, so there is always the chance one of us might decide it’s not worth all the pain.
I believe difficult love is the kind of love we were meant to experience. (I don’t mean dangerous love — where someone is hurting you or making you pretend to be someone you’re not — dangerous love is unhealthy.)
Joy and meaning come from succeeding in the face of impossible odds and learning to understand that life is filled with both pleasure and pain. There is no joy in taking lessons in something you already know — the joy is in learning something hard, putting your back into it, making an effort when it would be easier to walk away.
Anything easy gets boring. Easy love, reliable love, comfortable love is for people who are asleep, people who have settled for ordinary and plain.
Love is difficult when we first fall in love– when we don’t know what the future might hold — and it is the most exciting. Difficult love reminds us that some things are worth fighting for. And it makes us appreciate the easier times because they are fleeting.
Loving our bodies is difficult love. Loving our family is difficult love. Loving strangers is difficult love. Loving our mistakes is difficult love.
Difficult love is the kind of love that fills our lives with happiness, gratitude and excitement.
The next time circumstance conspire to make loving someone difficult, instead of moaning about how unfair it is, celebrate the fact that these are the things that forge strong, enduring, exciting relationships.
What makes loving someone difficult for you?
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So often Katie, I feel like you are talking straight to me. Thank you, even if you weren’t, as I so needed to read your words right now.
Trust makes loving someone difficult for me. But I’m learning. Like all of us, I’m a work in progress. Conquering loving the most difficult person to love – ME – helps.
Xxx
Thanks Vicki — when I write for myself it is amazing how often other women are having the same experience. Sending you lots of love. K x
Thought provoking as usual, Katie.
Thank you gorgeous Miss E x
Distance makes loving difficult for me right now. My new honey lives about two and a half hours away, which isn’t THAT far, but we’re both pretty busy people so now that I’m back to school we don’t see each other for weeks at a time. We can phone each other, but still, a relationship requires more conscious effort when you don’t have the ease of seeing your partner whenever you’d like. I certainly still have no clue what the future holds for us there either. Oh love, the things I do for it.
It’s worth it though. Love is always worth it. x
You are so right Katie.. Difficult love is the good stuff, substance, emotions, true meaning, the kind of love worth fighting for, the love that should be fought for. I experience this a lot in my life and as exasperating as it can be at times, I know it’s real and I will take real convenience and “just settling,” any day!
Stopping by from Bloppy Bloggers, FB. – Great post.
Thanks for stopping by Mimi — I LOVE that you are magical and mystical, and that you agree with me. ♥
If it doesn’t hurt sometimes how do you know it’s real?
♥