This moment right here

I used to title some of my posts, Evolving 101, and sometimes, when I felt I really understood something, Evolving 201, and on even rarer occasions, Evolving 301. I used these titles because I saw (see) myself as a student, and certainly, I can see the proof of that, and the progress.

Love-it's the thing that has delighted and disappointed, confused and so oftentimes consumed me. It's the thing I thought was one thing, then discovered was another thing, and then after that, something entirely different. So now, when I think of the numbers I've assigned to wherever I am in the course, I see that they are completely without weight or meaning. Because just when I think I have learned something, or know something, or "grok" something, that something itself changes and evolves into something else.

I was 43 when I started this blog, when I started waking up in a way I'd never woken up before. And for the years following, I opened, unfolded, revealed and recoiled, until I arrived at this moment, this moment right here.

When I was a child, I recognized love as a combination of adoration and neglect. As a young woman, I recognized love as something steady and unmoving. As a woman awake after years of sleeping, I recognized love as a fire burning so hot, that it left me burnt beyond recognition. And today, I recognize love as something like recognition itself.

It's the reflection of me when I look in his eyes, the expansion of my heart when he looks into mine. Love is motion without chaos, it's mutual and fluid, and funny, and it's dangerous and safe at the same time. Love is hot and it warms me. It's honoring the one I love, and crossing my fingers that he will honor me, not out of obligation, but of his own free will. 

I can't say that I surrender now, but I surrender more than I ever have. I can't say that I've passed a course, or even a test, but I can say that I've been to the mountaintop. It's high up here, and I'm scared of heights. It's hard to breathe up here, but I've never seen a more beautiful view. Never before this moment, right now, right here.