Love is in the air

What is love? No, I cannot answer that question today, sorry. I'm not sure that there is a definitive answer but we all feel love in different ways. I take a lead on the idea of love from the Ancient Greeks. Eros defines a love that we see across much of modern culture, in many of our stories. It's a physical love, a desire for the touch, for another's physical form. This love often sits next to the impatient passions of Himeros. It's a love that must be fulfilled, a love that cannot wait, a love that is ready to burst at the seams. All together, there are seven godlings that embody the language of love, a commitment to love and a protector of the human individuality that makes love unique in its power. Today, we're focussing on two of those godlings.

My heart has been broken many times but not through a loss of romance. A fortunate, even privileged child, I was born into a world of love. My parents and my elder siblings saw me and took me straight into their hearts. For my parents, me being was enough to love me, no matter where life took me or what I did. I could have broken hearts, broken laws, broken the whole world but I would never have been able to break their love. Even as they both left this world, at different times, the one thing I knew was that their love was in me. I could hold their love, I could use their love, I could love as they loved me. Their love was unconditional, their love was the selfless love of Anteros. My love for them is eternal.

Still, my heart was broken when they passed on. Even though their love remained, their physical presence was gone. With that, my world changed. I changed. I took actions that I may not have taken before, I did things to make them proud, I did things to rebel, I longed for their guidance, for their presence, for their love in words and in actions. This is a love associated with Pothos, a personification of heartbreak, a connection to the inevitable pain associated with love. It's a part of love that we would rather avoid but this love makes all other love so much more powerful. My story today is not about my loss but about everything I have gained through that loss. Will I, will we, ever truly understand love? I don't think so but we will all feel it in our lives, in at least one of its different forms. After all, what is life, without love?

Steve and Trisha

For this year's Storytelling with Puck, our dear friend Trisha Lewis wrote about a love of her own:

It all started in 2002....

when we found each other - Steve and I.

We found each other with the help of a dating site and a cafe called 'Rickys'.

We were both on the site - but hadn't sent messages.

Why?

For me it was because he was rock climbing in his photo - and for him it was that I had '3 plus' children.

These instant reactions nearly stopped our love story before it even started.

I had been honest with the drop down option on the site - the only choices were 1/2 or 3 plus children - I had 3. '3 plus' made him think I had a school-full!

I had associated his rock climbing with: 'being like a cyclist who goes off every weekend clad in Lycra and I never see him.'

Enter the cafe.

I was living in Swanage and used to go to this cafe with a friend - and Steve used to have a cooked breakfast in the cafe with his friend - before they set off to the Purbecks for a day of climbing.

I was chatting with my friend and have to confess I never noticed Steve!

Steve spotted me, however, and recognised me from the dating site.

That evening a message popped up in my dating site inbox - from Steve.

'Believe it or not - I think I saw you this morning in Swanage in the cafe.'

He had broken through the 'too many kids' fear - and I then broke through my 'climber/cyclist' fear. We were just two people talking - connecting.

Our first date led to the second - and with no 'blind rushing' we proceeded...

This photo was taken 2 years later during one of many glorious city breaks.

But - what you don't see in a photo is the journey before and after the snapped moment in time.

I was still a work in progress. Whilst partly healed by my 'nice' second marriage, I was still nursing deep wounds from my first marriage to an abusive narcissist.

Moving forward from the Paris trip to present day?

This man has been a patient, nurturing, enriching presence. Here in our mid 60's, we laugh, we share, we understand and feel understood.

We still fancy each other too!

I had to learn what love between adults felt like. I had to believe in that love, rather than defensively hold it at arm's length.

'What would I be without him - he's my everything..' - NO - I am not going to say that - not even for Valentines Day!

I will simply say -

'I got to be all me - with him'. 'He got to be all him - with me.' 'We created a really life-enriching story - together.'

Neither the cafe nor the dating site exist now - but we are as solid as the Eiffel Tower! (And if it collapses after writing this story - we are even stronger!)

Life is a journey. Stay curious. Create good stories.

You can find Trisha's original post here.

Mother and daughter

Lucy Griffin-Stiff wrote a love story of a different kind:

Me: “Darling, can I help you tidy up your hair for school?”

Elsie: “No thanks, it’s fine”.

Me: "Are you sure. It looks a bit wonky?"

E: "No. It's fine like this"

Our kids have a great way of setting off our unconscious triggers, things that we’ve parked and forgotten about from our childhood that resurface without us even being conscious of it.

For me today it was Elsie’s hair! She’s seven now and wants to independently do her own hair before school.

On the one hand this is great! It free’s me up from doing it and being depended on to be there every morning, without fail, to do her hair.

On the other side, she doesn’t really feel the need for it to meet my definition of tidy.

This is actually my problem, not hers.

Good-for-her that her hair-do is good enough! YAY.

But it took me a lot of patience and letting go to tell myself – do you know what, does it really matter? Is it a big problem? No.

I grew up in a house where it mattered. It was a fear story. Your hair had to be neat and tidy to my mother’s standards, your appearance smart, or else! At least that’s how it felt to me and this belief entered my subconscious to the point that I’m uncomfortable when I send Elsie out the house looking how she chooses.

It’s such a lesson to learn in the middle of life, that these old stories we hold on to don’t have to be true for everyone, or forever.

And also that we don’t want to pass on these fear stories and our "first half" conditioning down the generations – or we’ll keep the epidemic of “I am not enough” in one guise or another on repeat forever!

I’ve done a lot of work over the years on releasing my "first half" conditioning, making peace with the past, letting go of baggage, creating a life I love – but each day through our kids there’s still a little lesson to learn in how ingrained these can be!

Do you find this in moments with your family?

Read Lucy's original post here .

Do you have a love story?

Why not share your love story with the world? Maybe you think that love is not a topic for LinkedIn but business is built on love, it's built on relationships, it's built on shared connections, empathy and understanding. So, make a post next week about some kind of love. Remember, it doesn't have to be romantic love but of course, it can be.

We'll be back next week

If you can't wait until then, you can find more from Puck Creations by checking out?King Puck's Wisdom ?and you can listen to every podcast released so far by visiting our?Puck Podcast ?page. See you soon!