True Love, Good Love

I did a double-take when my friend told me about her start-up. Because it wasn’t any small business. It was a winery. Sounds glamorous, right?

Well, kind of. It’s just that the business is located in rustic Eastern Washington. That means she just traded the thriving metropolis of Seattle for a town of only 9,000 people. She’s having a blast following her dreams, but still adjusting to a place where Main Street shuts down at 10:00 most nights of the week.

So far, things couldn’t be better. Her company is on the fast track. Their wines are showing up in stores throughout the Pacific Northwest. They’ve even opened a sister restaurant in a larger, neighboring town.

Still, she only had one question when we sat down: “Where am I going to find a boyfriend?” She’s concerned that her new small town means small prospects.

Is she right to be worried?

Maybe. But the good news is that not having a boyfriend at the moment doesn’t mean she’s running short on love. In fact, limiting herself to romantic love is too limiting. It would be like trying to squeeze her happy go lucky outlook and big laugh into a little box. Finding someone special may take some time, but there’s no way she’ll lose out on being surrounded by loving people.

In the February series, Make Room for Love, we’ve seen how people have overcome challenging circumstances to make room for all kinds of love:

• In The List, we learned how any list of essential qualities needs to leave a little space for the unexpected. Mistakes are part of life, so we need to practice erring on the side of love.
• An unexpected encounter in Remember Me? made Nicole remember the qualities vital to her marriage.
• Cut the Craving showed the power of releasing toxic relationships. Releasing the mistakes of the past is just as important as searching for new love.

You may not have a picture-perfect relationship in your life right now, but that’s ok because real relationships aren’t limited to Valentine’s Day. They don’t stand still. They are imperfect-challenging and enlightening us.  Sometimes they strain under the stress of everyday life, then bounce back again. Here’s the way Gemeny Hernandez described it in an Instagram post dedicated to her girlfriend, Emily Estefan:

There is love in every corner here. And not the kind of love you might think I’m referring to. Not flowers, chocolates, and poor-rhyme-scheme love.

True love. Good love. Our love.

Love that permeates every piece of its surroundings. Love that chokes you, shakes you, scares you, illuminates you, heals you, awakens you. Love that pours so much of itself into you, you can’t help but become it. Love that is so loud, everything else is just background noise.

As we leave February, carry the Soul Boss principle of showing compassion with you. Remember Gemeny’s words and keep an open, willing heart. That’s how you experience true love. Good love.