What Do You Love?
I wrote this while I was sick with a stomach virus. It makes me sound crazy (not terribly unusual) but I think that makes it interesting. The question it begs is: What do you love and how can you know for sure?
“Someone on the radio this afternoon said that you should do what you love. This trite idea has been repeated to me hundreds of times and I have yet to grasp its meaning.
My head says:
Love is in the capacity of a noun to elicit interest and joy but is powerless without the desire of the lover to seek it.
I don’t know what I love.
There are many people in my life that I say that I love: My parents, friends and the kids that I coach. I love my clients and lazy-boy and movies. I love typing and sunsets and mint chocolate chip ice cream. Or do I?
I know that all of these things can bring me joy at times but, especially today, I feel disconnected from these nouns and my desire to seek them. I can’t seem to reference the cognitive file for a palpable understanding of joy . I can’t remember if I have always felt this way or if this is just a mental manifestation of having a stomach virus for the past 3 days. I worry that there is something wrong with me (other than the virus). Everything has an ethereal feel and as I reach into my mind I cannot grasp one noun that seems real. I feel apathy about the world as I type.
This morning, despite my sideways brain, I somehow managed to make a meeting at work. Afterwards I willed myself to IHOP, quite possibly the most unappetizing place on the planet, for breakfast with Ken. IHOP isn’t quaint like a Magnolia or Kerby Lane, it’s like eating waffles at the DMV – it’s packed with pathologically unhealthy people that steal my breath and my appetite too. IHOP was, embarrassingly, my idea but only because of Harvest Grain and Nut Pancakes. Tyrone Biggins has proven they contain actual crack. The rest of the IHOP fare is mediocre but those pancakes are exceptional. I ate a short stack and struggled to keep them down.
As I was leaving I almost got into an accident in the parking lot. As I exited the IHOP I looked both ways, saw nothing move within 1000 yards and turned out slowly to the sound of screeching brakes, bloody screams and a blaring horn. I looked to my right and saw a sideways Volvo sedan. I hardly acknowledged the car and its patrons. They flailed their arms out the windows with unidentifiable gestures like tweens on a Six-Flags ride. I continued slowly, with a zombie-like calm, towards the exit, moving glassy-eyed through the IHOP checkout lane. The Volvo stayed still for a while in my rear-view mirror and kept its distance from me as I headed towards the highway.
I couldn’t tell if I was in a dream or just ill. I shouldn’t have been driving a car. I was distracted not by drawn attention but instead by an altered state of consciousness. I was swimming through a viscous cloud; an opaque substance filled my head and distorted my view. I could barely connect with the fact that I almost wrecked my car and hurt real people. It seemed absurd to me that the Volvo was there without warning. I was nonplussed.
I began to regain some self-awareness as I drove home but only enough to be scared by my delirium. I couldn’t quite snap out of it so I drove grandpa-style, 35mph in the right lane, blinker on at all times for no apparent reason in hopes that others would heed the warning. I made it home without further incident and used someone else’s feet to walk up the stairs.
I now sit outside of my mind trying desperately to get a hold on honest love. Every time I try it feels like I am glossing off the surface; spinning pointlessly like a bike tire, the spokes keeping me just out of reach of something real. Can someone else help me find the answer? I’m sure the only person that can know my answers is me but what if the me inside of me doesn’t reply or doesn’t know ?
I think this perspective will seem foreign to me tomorrow when I am hydrated, rested and my mind isn’t baked by fever. Maybe I know exactly what my life means and I am just temporarily insane due to flu. I appreciate this chance to see the world from a different side but I’m also scared by my inability to answer a simple question and by my mental distance from the things that I love. ”
This flu-induced psychosis hit me over the head hard enough to show me I needed to revisit my motivations. I should be able to go off my rocker and still be able to say who I love and what I want. I recovered from the virus without drain bamage and look back with grace at the pointed question that was asked of me: What is important and how do I know? I know my answer now and it was in my own head all along:
I love to elicit joy and excitement in those who elicit joy and excitement in me.
It took a 106 degree brain and severe dehydration to find my answer, do you know yours?
Take a moment to ask this of yourself: What do you love and how do you know? Are you sure it is love or is it a strategy you have devised to avoid genuine interaction? Are you afraid to do what is needed to reconnect and rebuild? Have you let the people in your life that you love get pushed out of focus, replaced by money and material? Is it is time to re-make your list? Do what you must until your answer is clear…when it is build every day of your life with the bricks of your honest answer and a foundation of truth and love.
What Do You Love?,
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Wow is all i can say. I hope you are feeling better!
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I’m back to normal (yeah, yeah, stop laughing!) and feeling good! I drive scared now though, especially when I pull out of a lot!
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I have heard it said that you know what you truly love by looking at where you spend your money and where you spend your time. Basically what are you investing in. And if the things you say you love don’t match up to that, then it is lipservice. Love is a verb, it is action.
With that in mind I can say w complete conviction that I love my husband and son, and I love my God. I can also say I love interacting w friends and loved ones via the Internet. And my time and resources confirm that.
Great post. In some ways it sounds like your illness made some things foggy, and some things clear. Glad you are well now and appreciate what you shared.
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Thanks Jamie. I’m not sure if I want to use the word love for eating or for driving my car or sleeping even though that is where i spend most of my money and time. I want to reserve that word for my parents, my friends, my clients and my community.
A 50yr old terminal patient I cared for in college as a hospital volunteer took my arm as I was leaving the room and said “If you remember one thing, remember that friends are better than money.” I spend my money on the things I need, not on love. I do agree that my time is valuable and that I should spend more of it on the objects of my love.
I’m glad you know what you love and I’m glad you didn’t have to get ill to find out 😉
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Think I messed up my info on my post. Dang iPod one finger typing 🙂
Take care.
Jamie
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Great post to make us think…
Take a moment to ask this of yourself: What do you love and how do you know?
Great question – I think you know when it’s an overwhelming feeling inside of joy that you want to share with all. I love to give joy and enrich others lives. I read up on something called “faith enacted in love” It can be taken in may ways but one in my head is when you have a strong, positive faith in something, love comes forth.
Are you sure it is love or is it a strategy you have devised to avoid genuine interaction?
For that to avoid something – I don’t feel joy inside, rather a bit of hurt that tells me not all my actions are true.
Are you afraid to do what is needed to reconnect and rebuild?
At times yes. It depends on the situation and person. Especially if their is a high chance of getting hurt inside or them using me.
Have you let the people in your life that you love get pushed out of focus, replaced by money and material?
No, I try not to, money doesn’t get you anywhere family and friends can
Is it is time to re-make your list?
It should always be looked at – people change and we need to either change with it and/or make sure what we do if for the right reasons. Love and life evolves equally.
Thank you again for the post to make us think and look inside to that which moves us.
-Post It Girl
[…] I wrote the post What Do You Love? I organically produced a personal mantra that has not left my mind – “I love to […]
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Nice topic – respect !