15 Comments

This was beautiful, Isabel. Thank you for sharing your definition of love. I often think about attention and how it's paid, as well. The way we can shift our focus, and if we really exercise our abilities, we can put it on what we find most important. Love is where we place our attention. You seem to have yours set well.

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such a beautiful comment, thank you so much :) exactly: attention is the medium for love, which is why it is so important to be disciplined with where we point it. thank you for pointing some of yours at this piece!

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Simply beautiful! My day has been enriched. Thank you!

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i am so glad :') thank you for the lovely comment!

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this made my heart warm. thank you for all you share and all that you are. also—the thought of a good relationship being 'one long conversation you never want to end' will stick with me.

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and this made my heart warm! i am so glad it resonated, and the long conversation idea is the definition i've navigated most relationships with for the last several years and it has served me well :) thank you for reading!

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Isabel, I don’t know you and you don’t know me. But what you describe is the relationship that I have to my own writing. Here is the last thing I published, https://edbrenegar.substack.com/p/synthesis-in-time-and-space. It isn’t stream of consciousness, but more like the convergence of the whole of my life in a couple of thousand words. It isn’t complete or even finished. It a way station along the journey of my life. It flows out, unfolding piece by piece, as it emerges from the microscopic moments of interaction with people, so that it transcends my life. All those metaphors mixed together in one sentence points to how large and expansive that I feel it is. Thank you for writing and for understanding.

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thank you for reading, and for sharing! so glad there is resonance between these ideas and the ones you've been writing about, too :)

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My pleasure.

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It's like you expressed so much of what I have been trying to say but couldn't find the words. Thank you for that gift. I can be attracted to a womans look, values, goals. But, If she doesn't tell me her story. Everything goes cold fast. Thought it was trust and that is some of it. What you expressed is closer to the truth. Without specific feedback, challenges criticism and agreement I don't think trust could be established. Definitely worth re-reading and sharing. Well done Isabel.

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thank you so much for the lovely comment! i like the description that 'everything goes cold fast'. it triggers this visual of a beautiful human without any warmth, any life coursing through them. they look great from the outside, but as soon as you touch them, you pull your hand away, taken aback by their apparent emptiness. the attraction to them goes cold fast. i think this is a good description for attraction that is not substantiated by prolonged interest or compatibility.

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The inerests do not even need to match, just that she shares them with me and when I share well all my limited conversations have occurred online with covid and geography small town that I'm related to approximately a fifth of them. More often than not after explaining my situation interests the response is "back to focusing on me" and with the swift changing landscape politicaly education financial everything my focus is finding some way forward that will give my children a chance at life. Speaking of need to go see if I can catch the middle son at nannys want to show him some treatment protocols for vax injury he is national guard medic. no symptoms but mom seems to be having issues.

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Isabel, don't let your gratitude float aimlessly in no direction. Point it upward. You are not lucky, you are a uniquely created being. That inner voice affirming you is your Creator telling you that the gifts you are exercising are the ones that are most pleasing to Him. The love you feel is your reaction to your deepest passions meeting some of the world's greatest needs. God made conscious existence that way. He made YOU that way.

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Absolutely beautiful. I bathe in the perfection of this momentary exchange of love.

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It's like you expressed so much of what I have been trying to say but couldn't find the words. Thank you for that gift. I can be attracted to a womans look, values, goals. But, If she doesn't tell me her story. Everything goes cold fast. Thought it was trust and that is some of it. What you expressed is closer to the truth. Without specific feedback, challenges criticism and agreement I don't think trust could be established. Definitely worth re-reading and sharing. Well done Isabel.

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