I love my dog so much, it hurts.
And this is my new hope for 2024:
To love each day, so much, that it hurts.
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Love So Much
I love my* dog so much, it hurts.
Leaving her for a grocery trip, I feel the pang of absence.
I love some people so much, it hurts.
Sometimes, my gratitude for connection comes out in tears.
I have loved some people so much, it hurts,
especially when they died or left me.
I have loved the Earth, the mountains, the rivers, the animals,
the Sky, the birds, the sun, and the moon so much, it hurts.
I don’t ever want to leave.
Rarely have I ever loved myself this much, so much, that it hurts.
Usually, it hurts because I don’t love myself at all.
I wonder what this means,
that I can love a dog, another being, the mountains, so much that it hurts,
but it also hurts that I can’t love myself the same.
If I loved myself like my dog,
it would mean I could be weird and make any wrong,
and I would still love me.
If I loved myself like I loved my dad, my sister, my mom,
it would mean I didn’t care what I did,
I would just want me to be happy.
If I loved myself like my sister who passed,
it would mean I would love myself through death.
If I loved myself like the lover who left,
it would mean I would love myself,
even after breaking my own heart.
If I loved myself like the mountains, the rivers, the sun, the moon, and the stars,
it would mean I found both expanse and home, everywhere I go.
I would never have to leave.
I would love myself so much it hurts,
and turn around and love again,
realizing love is limitless,
that I have only mistaken pain for love,
another for myself,
life for death,
and see that it is only Love that remains.
*It always feels a little bit wrong to use the word “my” with a dog, like we can own such precious, loving energy. Really, I prefer the Hawaiian phrase “animal kahu”, meaning I am the guardian and protector of these enlightened beings.
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Remember
I love Pacer so much I could snuggle with her for hours.
Wouldn’t it be great to live life this way, to snuggle with Love for hours?
Yet I rush through both, snuggles and life.
Why?
Have I forgotten all that matters?
Actually, I think that is precisely it.
Remember.
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Love as a Phoenix
Have you ever loved someone so much that you would die for them?
I have done this for Pacer.
Not physically, of course.
Instead, I threw my fears, my ego, into the flames.
It was a slow, painful death.
She never asked me to do this.
In all my destruction and false identities, she would have kept loving me.
Even if I hurt her, as I did and almost did… she never took an ounce of love away.
You see, I could not give her the conditional love I offered myself.
I could only love her, unconditional love in physical form, back with unconditional love.
So out went the conditions of my ego-
And truly, I almost died.
She still loved me, even when I had no honor to my name.
In fact, I felt shame.
For not being enough. I felt unworthy of love.
Still, she loved me all the same.
I tried to figure this out,
to sort through all the pain,
to find a reason why,
why was I still worth loving?
Of course, dogs don’t speak in words.
Dogs only speak the language of love and light.
I received a snout sighing on my lap,
and felt message that said,
“My Love, you have always been worth loving,
anything else was a lie,
I am the only truth.”
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Expand
Love so much, that it hurts,
Let it hurt so much that you break open.
And find your freedom.
Understand that you had to break.
That fear was just a shell.
The love inside your heart was always beyond it too.
In breaking, you expand.
A Dog and Her Girl 