The Opposite of Love

I sat down today to edit and write some more on Wil Clarey: School of Hard Knocks. My latest revisions weren’t there! I opened my iPad to see if the revisions were there. I watched in horror as the older version overwrote my revisions!

All that work from my last Wil Clarey writing session was gone! The iPad must have been offline and didn’t save them! Aaargh!

That put me in a bad frame of mind for editing and writing Wil Clarey. So, I decided to write a blog instead.

How do you write a blog in a series about love when you’re ticked at your computer?

You write about the opposite of love.

You would think that my anger would put me in the right frame of mind for that. Right?

No.

As I started typing, I remembered that anger is not the opposite of love.

What is?

Let me tell you a story.

I’ve always been a nerdy kid. I would play by myself with my cars and my train, making up stories as I acted them out with my toys.

I didn’t have a lot of friends, but I had my parents and my siblings.

Okay, my siblings didn’t want to hang out with their nerdy little brother. But my parents paid attention to me. Until…

When I was ten, my parents divorced. Mom worked hard to support us kids, so I didn’t get to see her as much. But I lived for those trips to Dad’s.

One day when I was twelve, I was so excited about my weekend with Dad that I sat out on the front steps waiting for him. I knew he had a long drive from Fresno to San Mateo to pick me up, so I tried to be patient.

I waited.

And waited.

I began to worry that we would be getting in too late, but that was okay. We would still have Saturday and Sunday.

I waited.

And waited.

Then Mom came to the front door. “Your dad called.”

Was he just leaving now? Oh well I can wait more.

“He forgot it was his weekend, he’s not coming.”

I was devastated. I had never felt so lonely in my young life.

You see, anger and hatred are not the opposite of love, apathy is. I felt very unloved in that moment.

My dad did plenty to show his love for me over the years though it seemed to be difficult for him. Like all of us, he wrestled with his priorities, often coming down on the wrong side of that fight.

Like that day.

When he forgot.

Do you struggle with showing love? I have to admit that I can get pretty self-centered. In those times, it takes a conscious decision to show my love.

I have to remember to do things as simple as taking a break from writing to call my oldest daughter (which I just did). Other times, I have to remember to rearrange time or financial priorities to support a loved one. Either way, it takes an act of my will.

Do you feel like that lonely kid on the front steps, disappointed by the indifference of others? I wish I could say that time will heal, or you just need to move on. We both know that it isn’t that easy.

There is an easy step you can take towards healing.

It’s simple.

Show love to others.

Yep, that easy. When you make a conscious choice to do something to impact the lives of other people, it impacts your life just as much.

In this age when love is scarce and apathy abounds, impact your world through simple, conscious acts of loving and caring.

And share with the rest of us what that does for you and others!