It's about love

someone asked me to think about my purpose in life. what am i here for? what do i want to do?

and while i was lying on the table with needles hitting various nerves in my hands and feet and stomach, i thought about why i was here. what is important for me? what touches me so much it makes me cry?

for me, it's about love. it's about compassion. it's about forgiveness. it's about the kind of love where you dissolve, where you love someone else more than you love yourself. where you are willing to put aside your own desires, your frustrations, your anger, even your judgement to love someone else unconditionally.

it's the way a mother loves a child, especially a baby, when it feels like every single one of your needs - even the immediate physical ones - becomes secondary to your being a lifeline for another being. for a new life.

i'm not sure how it works, but it's the way when you hold a hurt or angry or frustrated child and feel her body melt in your arms, it's the love that makes her go from brittle and bony to soft and yielding.

for me, it seems to be best expressed through motherhood though i've tried it in relationships - perhaps i still believe it in relationships - though it only works when both people are willing to love body and soul. otherwise, i find, you are eaten up by the ego of the other. in my case, perhaps i wasn't patient enough to see it through, until my partner came round full circle. perhaps, he would have.

i think my purpose is to be loving, to be caring, to be nurturing. sometimes, i wonder if i've gone too far - if i work so hard that i appear to be invincible, so resilient as to be superhuman - and if there are too many people who see me as an all-powerful mother figure, people who ascribe powers to me beyond my capabilities. people who see me as so powerful their mission is to knock me down.

but my purpose again.

to bring love into my world. to move away from anger and hostility rather than fighting it. to heal and help people who are open to it.

i'm not sure what that means i can do. love alone can't do much. but without love, or passion or commitment, not much can be done anyway.