By Stephanie K. Hopkins
Unconditional love. It sounds perfect. Who doesn’t want love that doesn’t ask for anything in return?
Love that accepts us, flaws and all. Love that doesn’t waver in the face of challenges, doubts, or the unknown.
Love that doesn’t care if you don’t do the dishes, if you have shameful secrets, if you make mistakes, if you made questionable dating decisions in the past, if you have trouble talking about your feelings, if you watch Bachelor Pad, if you sometimes mispronounce words like “macabre,” if you insist on trying to recycle bottle caps when everyone knows caps go in the garbage, if you drink too much, if you are too sensitive, if you are addicted to pictures of cute animals, or if you never eat leftovers but always insist on taking them home.
Unconditional love is based not on what you’ve done to earn it, but because someone sees you and says, You’re worthy simply by being.
It asks only that you don’t crush it, harm it, or toy with it.
Even then, it can look at you and say, I know you’re only lashing out. I see how your suffering makes you unable to accept this love. Do what you need to do; I’ll be here.
For some, however, unconditional love is too difficult to accept. They don’t trust it. Things have happened in their lives to make them look for the agenda in everything. What does this person want from me? might be their first response.
For those of us who don’t trust love, it might seem like a trap. It seems impossible that someone would just want to give us something, impossible that someone might just value us, want us to just be.
Unconditional love might seem like a mockery, a cruel mirror throwing our own inadequacies back in our face.
Like when we’re frustrated or angry and we find ourselves yelling, and we want the other person to yell back, legitimize our anger. How awful when they don’t, and they are hurt and calm and don’t lash back. Or worse, when they continue to love us when we are so clearly doing them wrong.
Why don’t you hate me like I hate myself right now? Why do you continue to love me when obviously I am so despicable? What’s wrong with you?
If we could relax a little in the face of love. If we could have faith that unconditional love is possible. If we could let it wrap its arms around us, contain our thrashing, our resistance, until we finally tire out and give in. Okay, I’m too exhausted to fight. Love me then, if you must.
Stephanie writes short stories, non-fiction, and young adult fiction. She recently finished a young adult novel, "Edge of Seventeen," and is working on a memoir about her adventures as an ex-professor turned bartender. You can reach herstephaniehop@gmail.com and follow her on Twitter @stephaniehop1.
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