Kim Anami

6 13

The Price of Love

One of the stories people get told about relationships is that the “honeymoon” period doesn’t last. It’s a temporary high, fueled by hormones and neurotransmitters.

It’s just a story though.

Love is a constant opening. A constant choice to be loving, to be kind, generous and to take the high road. In everything. To see the best in those around you.

What falls by the wayside is effort, not love or passion, by some kind of default.

How much do you value love?

What will you give of yourself, of your life, to have deep, all-consuming, penetrating love?

One of my favorite Rumi quotes is:

“I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.

Now my loving is running toward my life, shouting,
What a bargain! Let’s buy it!”

You have to have a deep faith that love will save you. That it’s worth making big decisions for, taking the huge risk to open and have your existence blown apart. To know that it’s power will fuel your life more than anything else in the universe.

That’s the part that people let go of or back away from.

It isn’t love that does the shrinking.

It’s your courage.

I often see couples on their second or later marriages, who finally start to get it.

They understand what’s required of them.

They lived shrunken lives before. They know the cost of that.

Now they’re ready to go big.

They dare to believe.

That love will deliver them.

When you finally become willing to toss it all into the fire, love will find you. (And this even applies to those in long-term marriages, where the hiding has gone on for years).

It’s easy to play safe when you hide behind a non-sexual relationship, or a lackluster one.

None of you is really on the line.

You can spend years hiding in that place.

But when you meet and let yourself open to someone who demands all of you, sees all of you, there’s no more hiding.

Or when you decide to really let yourself be seen, everything changes.

Heart and genitals laid bare.

Like I said last week, when you are so achingly raw and exposed, the only place you can replenish yourself is in bed.

You need that replenishment like you need daily food.

To sustain your openness and vulnerability.

The further you dive, the stronger you get.

The more of you you let go of, the more of you you become.

So when you are called to love, and the price of kissing is your life, will you hesitate and analyze and let the moment pass?

Or will you run toward it, shouting?

And let it toss you over its shoulder and carry you away into a life you never even dreamed possible? And yet it fulfills every dream you’ve ever had.

Kxx