The Conditions of Unconditional Love

I think most people walk around expecting to find someone who will, at some point, give them unconditional love.  Others look to their children or to their parents and expect unconditional love.  You know, being loved for who you are, just you, nothing more, nothing less.  No stipulations.

I also think that we purposely gravitate toward others who we feel can love us unconditionally, despite all of our faults and flaws.  Or at least love us in the terms that we assume loving unconditionally means.  I am not so sure I want to be loved unconditionally.  Most often unconditional love is described by the flaws, the things we do that make life harder for the other person. It is our pros out weighing our cons. We will love someone unconditionally and somewhat pretend the other does not exist or that we can merely overlook the things that are not so lovable.  Rarely does unconditional love describe the joy we bring into someone's life.  Joy does not make it hard on another, but the sandpaper and baggage we carry around sure does.

If you look up unconditional love you will find that it is defined as affection without any limitations or love without conditions.  

After 8 years and 10 months in this world with Ivey and loving her with every breath taken since then, I can unequivocally say that there is no such thing as unconditional love as defined by a dictionary or what we imagine it to be.  Our humanness has programmed us with limitations and conditions necessary for us to be comfortable in this world.  It is who we are.

Rather, I would say that we love despite the limitations and conditions we must face in the presence of another person, be them intentional or unintentional conditions. We love them all, the pros and the cons, the faults and the flaws.  It is us choosing to love over and through our limitations and push into the unknown chaos of another soul and their world.  It is taking that risk.  Love is risky business.  It is knowing that your heart will break, you might break, the one you are loving may break and that the comfortable world you live in may come crashing down around you- and despite all that, you love them with your all, all you can give, for as long as you can give.  It is seeing the conditions in which you love them are at times full of joy, and at other times, those conditions will take you places that rip your heart from your own soul.  But you still willingly rip out your heart and give it willingly to the other and you love them despite and in spite of it all.

So, no, there is no unconditional love.   

It is love that accepts the conditions you must sometimes face 

while loving that person with your whole heart, your whole being.
Loving their whole heart, their whole being.

It is risking to love despite the conditions.

G.