The Will to Love

Is there anything more vulnerable than knowing love—than choosing love—in this human experience?

To love is to reveal ourselves to the uncontrollable chaos of life. In love, we risk—always and inherently.

And yet, it’s the very thing that makes life worth living.

I don’t believe love is a feeling. To me, love is a decision, an action, a potential congruence (I love), a possible commitment.

Love does not equal joy, ease, or softness.
Love is also grief, and rage, and fear, and pain.
Love can be ecstatic or excruciating, or both simultaneously.
It can be gentle and generous like a mid-summer rain.
It can burn hot like a forest engulfed in flames.
It can erupt like a volcano, scary, yet full of potential to create new land.

The decision to love is mine alone.
My decision isn’t dependent on another’s decision to love me.
I love. I decide.
Love doesn’t equal access, and it doesn’t equal connection.
My love can remain in the absence of another because it’s an act of my will.

I learned this first in my mind from bell hooks. I learned it in my body as I grappled with what decision to make regarding love and my abusive ex-husband. Ultimately, I decided to remain with my decision to love because it’s who I am and who I want to be in this world.

My decision to love remains in me, with my will, with my heart. While I love, I also end connection, communication, access. Even still, my love remains.

bell hooks articulates this in such succinct ways. Here are some of my favorite quotes from her:

• "Love is an act of will, both an intention and an action"
  

• “Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love…When we understand love as the will to nurture our own and another’s spiritual growth, it becomes clear that we cannot claim to love if we are hurtful and abusive. Love and abuse cannot coexist.”
  (To this end, I understand clearly that my ex couldn’t choose to love me because abuse was present—however, my decision to love isn’t contingent on another. My decision to remain with myself is a requirement to love, as it is an act of will. In order to love, I must be in relation to my will. And with that, in the face of being abused, I can still choose to love.)
  

• “There can be no love without justice…abuse and neglect negate love. Care and affirmation, the opposite of abuse and humiliation, are the foundation of love. It is a testimony to the failure of loving practice that abuse is happening in the first place.” (see my post on Redefining Justice to read my perspective of this concept.)
  

• And of course, I can’t share bell’s quotes on love without including her recipe to love—a thought I return to again and again as I reflect on my will to love.
  
  “To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients—care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.”

With all I’ve taken in mentally and emotionally, with all I’ve experienced physically and psychologically, this is how I’ve come to define love:

Love:

• an act of will grounded in care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, trust, and honest and open communication, void of abuse, and not contingent on another.

• a decision, an action, a potential congruence, a possible commitment.

• a vulnerable act that reveals oneself to another