Today is my 25th Wedding Anniversary so I thought I’d share what I know (or think I know) about love and relationships.
First though I’d love to celebrate the beautiful, wild, creative and incredible man that has taught me most of what I know…Brendan. I am grateful for all his love, devotion, loyalty and above all the way he encourages me to grow and become more of who I am every day. He is a spectacular human, always on a quest to grow and impact in powerful and positive ways. I am blessed.
So here’s some of what I have learnt along the journey.
Love and being in relationship can be messy, challenging and takes strength I didn’t know I had to move through some of our challenges and come out the other side.
Love and relationship is also beautiful, enriching, full of freedom and vulnerability that I never knew was possible.
There are seasons in relationships…and then seasons in the seasons. When we first met it was like spring. New love, possibility, it still had to push up through the soil so there were challenges and things to navigate but the beauty of it was full and divine.
Then Summer came. The knowing and choosing of this man in my life fully with heart open like the warmth of love touching me. This was the period of being engaged, getting married and new life. Again there were those super hot uncomfortable weeks of uncertainty that we weren’t sure we could get through. The questioning, the searching. But love here was still innocent, trusting, alive and willing.
Then came Autumn where the leaves started falling off our trees. Autumn is an incredibly beautiful season. We had kids and this lead to turning inwards, focussing on what was right in front of me and this wasn’t always Brendan. While a rich and powerful time, had I looked up and been more conscious I might have noticed our relationship losing its vibrant summer glow but instead I was consumed with family, businesses and the important grind of life.
Then came Winter….it was a long, hard cold, dire winter for us. One I didn’t see coming. We nearly didn’t make it.
In fact that winter we lost everything…physical wealth, trust in each other, trust in life.
It was hard and enduring and lasted for years.
This time was filled with so much doubt, fear, soul searching and holding on to shreds of hope for a brighter future.
It was also full of the beauty of raising kids, being a family and learning the ways of true love and personal power.
Then once more came the invitation of Spring.
I thought it would never come.
And when it did I didn’t know if I wanted it to.
I didn’t know if I was willing to accept the invitation and endure opening my heart again. If I could trust in the blossoming of our relationship.
I had a choice to make and had to answer a brave question of
“Was I willing to risk my heart and open to beauty, vulnerability, love and a new way of being together”.
Love and relationship is brave.
It takes courage, vulnerability, sensitivity.
It takes a willingness to say yes to potential hurt.
It takes conscious thought about another’s needs and our own needs.
Sometimes we are simply not willing to risk our hearts with a person.
The risks though help us explore new territory.
We ultimately create our own beautiful landscape through relationships…but the most beautiful landscape has contrast…rugged mountains, still lakes, open fields, beautiful gardens and deep flowing rivers.
A rich relationship does not have the predictability of a flower patch, it has the bounty of a life time of landscape, sometimes traversed with a stomping unaware foot, sometimes with trepidation and fear and ultimately we walk with a tender step being aware our actions have impact.
Much love, Kareena 🧡
