Ready

Are you ready to love? He asked. 

Before the word yes could roll off my tongue, I took a moment to wonder. Was I ready? 

When you have had a great love and have seen that love crumble into bits and bobs of nothingness, it’s hard to love again. So you go through life, lying to yourself, that you’re fine. That you’re okay. That you’re ready to love. You drift through life for ten years, you confuse sex for love, you confuse a sweet moment for love, you confuse everything else for love. And well, love? You run away from it. For ten years you float about, moving from one man to another, telling them you love them and when it doesn’t make sense anymore you make a resolve to love the next one. But a great love cannot be willed into existence. A great love is not chanced upon. A great love is work in progress. It’s destined to be so. Maybe ten years did teach you to grow up. Maybe in those ten years, you learnt to love yourself first. Maybe in the ten years you finally made peace with those bits and bobs of nothingness. In the ten years you learned how to look at your scars with kindness and acceptance. So maybe when he asks, are you ready to love? You say yes, and mean it.