Love ≠ Reciprocation

I go to the overpriced, organic grocery store Good Earth solely to buy Winder Dairy milk, vital wheat gluten, granulated lecithin and Tillamook Extra Sharp Cheddar. Last month I went right at dinnertime, so I also bought a Chocolove Sea Salt & Almond dark chocolate bar. Fireworks in my mouth. Worth the impulse.

The wonderful thing about Chocolove chocolate bars is that the inside of each wrapper is printed with a love poem (and the chocolate sections are stamped with a heart...cuteness). My printed poem was the sonnet from Romeo and Juliet that begins "A thousand times good-night!". I figured that was the poem for Sea Salt & Almond Chocolove, so you can imagine my delight when I bought a second bar and the poem was "Meeting at Night" by Robert Browning. Now I have to buy Chocolove bars until I get a repeat because it will bother me to no end wondering how many love poems are out there.

Romeo and Juliet. Star-crossed lovers. "Star-crossed" is code for "sap-sucking idiots" in my world. If you give Melissa a Romeo her wildest dreams would be surpassed for two weeks. Then she'd start to get suffocated. Then she'd get annoyed with the sycophancy. Then she'd withdraw and become a hermit. Hermits are grouchy. Melissa would be grouchy and start kicking puppies. See? No Romeos for me.

These candy bars got me thinking about love. And let me tell you, love does not equal reciprocation.

The greatest pitfall to my happiness has been expecting reciprocation. I made you an apple pie, so you should give me the remainder of your free time to do what I want. I made you a handmade gift, so you should make me something equally precious. I gave up my day to help you, so you owe me one of your days. All ways to create lousiness within.

Reciprocation may enhance friendships. It might define loyalty. It definitely increases quality of life. But it is not love.

We love those we serve. That is why parents love their children more than their children will ever love them. RE will never understand how much I love her until she moves heaven and earth for her own child and wakes up a few decades beyond childbirth realizing her life hasn't been her own for some time.

I give my love to lots of types of people:

     people that don't have a clue I love them

     people that reject my love

     people that appreciate my love

     people that underestimate my love

     people that misunderstand my love

     people that want my love

Which brings me to a favorite quote. I have this quote pasted inside my Bible on Map 15. I believe my reasoning for gluing the quote on Map 15 was that Map 15 didn't look like a map I'd use a lot and I needed some serious real estate for this quote. The quote is by Neal A. Maxwell:

"It was Paul who said that love is never wasted. It is not, of course, that the recipients of the love and praise always respond in a manner that we might hope. But it still can be said that there is never any waste of love because the giver of such love is also truly a beneficiary. The stretching of the soul and the reaching out to others can produce a capacity for generosity that may, in fact, exceed the capacity of the recipient to receive or appreciate the love given. But love is never wasted because, at a minimum, IT ENLARGES THE CAPACITY OF THE GIVER. In that sense, something good always happens."

IF I love you, I have chosen to love you whether or not you write me back, invite me over, give me gifts, promote me, defame me, or even respect me.  I will love you even if I am wasted on you. Because my gift is freely given.

*Image of "A Letter To His Wife", Peter Henry Evanson, 1926. His wife was "Sally" Elsie Leona Mabel Evanson.

...THIRD BAR PURCHASED 7-16-12. "X" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

...FOURTH BAR PURCHASED 8-28-12. "I Hid My Love" by John Clare

...FIFTH BAR PURCHASED 9-11-12. Excerpt from "Elegy XVI: The Expostulation" by John Donne, starting at the beginning and ending with the line "He first desire you false..."  (Seriously, Mr. Donne must have been raked over the coals by some beauty because he is generally ticked at females in his poetry.)

...SIXTH BAR PURCHASED 1-5-13. "Let Love Go, If She Will" by Robert Louis Stevenson (I didn't really get it, but I liked the line "the King discrowned is still a King")

...SEVENTH BAR PURCHASED 2-20-13. "To The Invisible Girl" by Thomas Moore (Sweet spirit of mystery! how I should love/In the wearisome ways I am fated to rove,/To have you thus ever invisibly nigh,/Inhaling for you ever your song and your sigh!)

...EIGHTH BAR RECEIVED *on my birthday* 5-12-13  Two stanzas from "Invitation to Love" by Paul Laurence Dunbar, the first starting with "Come when the nights are bright with stars..."  Cute poem.

...NINTH BAR PURCHASED 5-28-13 My daughter skipped school to work with dad, I was home alone with a thunderstorm and a dark house to enjoy this bar to. Luscious. The poem was Shakespeare's Sonnet 43 "When most I wink then do mine eyes best see..." If Shakespeare wrote me a love note I'd either totally get it or have no clue what he was saying.

...TENTH BAR PURCHASED 7-25-13 "Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art" by John Keats. Meh.

...ELEVENTH BAR PURCHASED 2-6-14 "The Dream" by Theodore Roethke  Some poets come across as borderline stalkers. This man included. But I liked his line "She knew the grammar of least motion"