The Responsibility of Being Loved

There are three words in the English language that will drop the bottom out of your world and change your life forever. They are very small words, sometimes used casually or bandied about with no concern or interest in the power they hold. These words are "I love you."

I remember when the bottom of my world dropped out. It felt as though the air had left my body and I was stunned into silence. Not the gaping, awkward silence of teenage movies when someone says "I love you" and the reply is "Yah." It was the incredible silence of a life changing statement having being uttered, a statement with the power to reorder a life and change every moment of every day. It's scary because you know that no matter what you do with your life, there will be someone else there.

When someone loves you, that comes with an awesome responsibility. When you are loved, you have to care for yourself. It is easy when you are alone to let things like doctor's visits or eating regular meals slip by. When there is someone else there, it's not nearly as easy. Having someone who cares about you makes you more responsible for yourself.

Beyond having to care more about whether or not you are healthy, love has this incredible power. Knowing that I am loved makes me want to become worthy to be loved. I know that I am loved exactly as I am, but I also want to be good enough to receive the incredible gift that is being offered. I want to become the person that the person loving me sees. Apparently the person I am and the person they see are one and the same, but I don't always believe that. It's hard to accept that someone would want to love me with all my faults and flaws. I know that I can be a stubborn, independent Irish woman and I have no intention of changing that. I'm just not sure how that can be considered lovable.

I used to think that loving someone carried that greatest responsibility. When you love someone, you want to take care of them, but also let them go enough so that they may grow and take chances and become more fully the person they are meant to be. When you are loved though, it changes your life dramatically. There is no longer one person, but two. There are two taking chances, two changing and growing together. The decisions that you make don't only effect you, but also the person who loves you. It's very difficult to forget those things when running off to have adventures. It doesn't always stop the adventures, but it changes them because you are changed.

It's amazing how much three little words can change your life in a way that it will never be the same again. It's amazing and beautiful and terrifying. With a lot of responsibility.