Dear Heart,

You were an undeveloped child when the inaccurate realization came that love cripples.  That false knowing left you emotionally lame and wounded. Life was a mistaken tutor when it taught that, but you were too immature to do anything except accept the teaching as truth. That was the very reason you began a life-long search for the very thing which brought such anguish for so long.  Like a flame seeking fire to join with your pursuit of affection has been relentless.  Dear heart, don’t stop trying.

When the strength of childhood should have been yours you were already fatigued and exhausted by love.  It is not your fault that you became a near beggar for the warmth of the love of others.  You needed only to be needed.  You wanted only to be wanted.  Dear heart, don’t ever give up.

Shattered first by this one and then by another; family, lover and friend.  This has been your path.  Like one lost in a blinding snow storm your steps have been slow and labored, but you still have found your way toward what you yearned for.  Dear heart, don’t stop moving onward.

Flawed by your own faults and damaged by the defects of others, the imperfection of love grew within you.  In childhood dreams of love were found in fairy tales and movies.  Those were the only dependable reference point you had, but the fantasy of one and make-believe of the other taught little about how one loves.  Dear heart, don’t lose that knowing.

What one does not have is impossible to give another.  As your parents were and extended family was, you became.  No matter how much you allowed yourself to travel in the direction of love, it was a destination you never arrived at because you did not even know it when it was nearby.  Like a train that missed its stop, you ran by love when it was before you only realizing the mistake too late.  Dear heart, don’t cease using what has been learned.

In your untamed need and flailing pursuit, you have hurt many people.  So self-absorbed and singled-minded with your sense of purpose, the pain caused was barely noticed by you usually.  Only later with mind turned backward could your past deeds be seen for what they were.  It was not your fault.  You did not know better then.  You do now.  Dear heart, don’t forget to forgive yourself.

Others were to blame for you being orphaned of healthy love and emotion when you were a child.  It was not your fault.  You simply knew no better.  That was a good explanation for your behavior when you knew nothing more.  Now the ‘university of life’  has given you a degree in knowledge and experience.  Dear heart, don’t forget to use that education.    

Today: you are like the heart of a young man who feels love openly and expresses it freely; a child formed into an adult.  Expressing your love to others will never be a mistake.  Dear heart, tell of your self truly

Today:  One who has known true pain and heartache knows best what joy and love feel like.  Each is but the mirror reflection of the other amplified by familiarity and practice.  It is in facing fear and continuing in spite of it that the heart triumphs.  Dear heart, be brave and give all of yourself without expectation.

Today:  Living long without being fed the emotional sustenance you needed means you have more to give than most.  Those who have suffered long at the hand of life, of others and of their own doing can understand you.  The best chance of being loved as you need to be is with those whose days adrift from love are a close parallels to yours.  People with common life experience will best “get you” and you them.  Dear heart, open yourself to those who love you.

So dear heart, do you understand that this is a love letter to you? 

I feel you pumping in my chest every minute of every day.  What feelings you bring forth for this body to know get expanded and felt in every cell of your/my/our being.  A therapist said to ‘us’ a few years ago, “I am surprised you made it”.  But dear heart, ‘we’ did make it!  ‘We’ are alive, well and able to love like few can.  The peril and hazard of the past have today become ‘our’ reward:  the ability to love deeply, fully and completely. ‘Our’ gratefulness overflows and falls in tears down the face to settle above a long shuttered heart that is flung willingly open.

The hunger for love is much more difficult
to remove than the hunger for bread.
  Mother Teresa