How do I love thee?

[nypurple]

Originally Posted by nvr.alone

Thank you again, Purple, for all the wisdom and compassion that you share. I do not often comment or come onto to PTO, although I do love the support and being kept informed, it seems to slow down time for me, and I start to dwell on what may never be...

Anyway, love the poem. Elizabeth Barrett Browning is my favorite. Her and Robert share the names of my lifer and I. I sometimes send him her sonnets. It's amazing to me the love they shared. A love straight from heaven I think, with the way he fell in love with her when she was already older and ill. It was love in truth for love's sake only, not for anything she could give or do for him, but simply to share an intimate union of souls. This is how I love my lifer. Not for anything he could or couldn't do or give me, but just for who he is to my heart and who I am because of his love. We started out maybe similar to you and yours. I went to his trial and stayed a few years in my early twenties. Then it became too heavy, and I left to force a normal life with someone who might fit the picture in my head. No one could fill the place in my heart where only my one true love could belong. I came back. Now it's been a few years. We have about 23 more before chance for parole. I dream, I pray, I hope, and I admire your courage. I know that there would still be pain even if he did come home. But I admire you for honoring the truth in your heart. I pray for the strength to do that. My lifer is the most honorable and courageous (and handsome) man I know. To settle for less would be a travesty, but it would be human.

I would love to sit and chat with you one day. I am on the other side of the country, but I would love to peek into the mind of a woman who fought for love against all odds and won. I haven't found many who could relate when loneliness means the one your heart loves is alive, just beyond your reach. "We love because God first loved us." (1 John 4:19). It is love in truth, it is sacrificial, it never seeks only for itself, and it is more than enough. True love is eternal.
This is another on of E. B. Browning's that I love:

If thou love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"--
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,--
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

tears falling on my smile....... How ironic, Lifer chose this very verse shortly after we reunited. A simple reminder of our beginnings.

Thank You.

[Inhishands]

I just Love this thread I'm sitiing here at my desk at work with bumps all over my arms and moist eyes....I love, Love and I love to hear it so honestly, sweetly expressed.

[Irish Girl]

I don't post sometimes because I just don't want to admit even to myself certain realities. The parole hearing process is what has me down now. I just want to be able to stop fighting but it seems like it's always something, a disciplinary ticket, or a parole denial, or going to court to fix some stupid mistake in some paperwork somewhere, games CO's or administrators play or whatever. Now they're messing with the phones where he is basically hoping to start a fight between guys over the significantly reduced phone time. It's just always something.

As for love, it most definitely is enough. I can't imagine love without commitment, that would not fit my definition of love. I have stuck with this man through thick and thin and it has never dawned on me once to to stray one inch mentally or emotionally from this relationship no matter how far I've had to drive or loss of privileges or whatever. I hope it never gets to that point, where the hardships imposed by the system would fray the ropes of my strength or eat away at my hope, hope that we can share our lives together out here.

I told a neighbor about him the other day. Big mistake. Reminders of how small minded people are also wear me out. I am not having a good week.

[ilovemygf1978]

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

[Tabbycat]

Originally Posted by nypurple

I have been on PTO longer than a NY minute; in retrospect I am humbled by the strong men and women that have graced this forum; those that have endured regardless of time. I am curious of those that have moved on - here one moment gone the next without warning; have they left their loved one or is the Loving a Lifer forum too much like the prison life they must deal with daily? I am amazed that there is a constant stream of ‘new comers’; those just finding PTO, the Lifer’s Forum – I ask who would want this Life? I am amused when others wander in here and ask ‘how do you do it, what no sex, EVER?; my first reaction is ugh, not another that I need to explain this to…….

There is love; not puppy love, crush love, infatuated love, selfish love, possessive love, jealous love, destructive or damaged love….I find myself defending myself, listing and explaining all that my love for this man is not. Why is that? Why can’t I simply say it is not how we love, it is that we love and are loved in return. With the infinite combinations of couples/mates in this world why is my choice so odd?

Recently, here in the Loving a Lifer forum the question ‘Is love enough?’ has been queried. A few have remarked they aren’t sure or if only they had the answer………

I believe in love and because my belief is intense I love passionately, with all that I am able. Loving makes me a worthier person; enhances my honorable and minimizes my undignified traits. I have found that love is enough. After all personal beliefs are met i.e. trust and respect it is possible to have true, real, valid, authentic and Life Lasting love. I do not believe in ‘love at first sight’, there must be a foundation that cannot be achieved in ‘moments’.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning asked and answered:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

So, how DO you love? Is LOVE enough to carry you through this Life?

This post hit home with me thank you for that. Love is enough. I believe this is exactly what I'm suppose to be doing in life. Why? Because of love. We have learnt to adapt and appreciate what we (us) really have and our time is more charished together. Dont get me wrong we will always have our good and bad days, but were at team and we are getting through this together.

PS. Were getting married!!!!