On possessiveness...

This morning I woke up thinking of how we define ownership of people. Can you say anyone is truly yours, be it a spouse, a child, a friend? How can people be reduced to the level of objects? Your shoe or your umbrella or your watch is yours because you paid for it .When you hold on tight to a memory, a person or a desire, you alter its shape and you alter the shape of your thoughts and actions. After years of meaningless possessiveness, you realize what you have held on to is not what you thought you originally had. In your efforts to keep something unchanged for yourself, you have permanently destroyed the delicate filigree pattern of the love that once was. What you are left with is a warped pattern far removed from the glorious original which you once coveted.

Last night I had a long online conversation with a young friend. He was unable to let go of a particular relationship. The other had moved on but he hung there with the intensity that is the bane of a few, and which most people cannot handle. How can someone who can impart but a cupful of love not be overwhelmed at the idea of an endless ocean of it coming their way? How can they not feel inadequate at their inability to reciprocate? How can they not run as fast as they can from a fearsome responsibility to take love seriously?  That is what I told him – when you know you cannot hold on, why not let go? The tighter you try to keep someone in, the more they long to get out. And at twenty-five years, he is but a child in my eyes – I don’t know how he can miss out on the excitement of being young , of knowing the whole world is ahead of him, of realizing how very talented he is and how his words convey a rare truth that can move hearts. And yet I know extreme possessiveness is not only relegated to the young, I know of many my age and older who think that the worth of their feelings increase in direct proportion to their ability to be possessive.

It is always better to bind someone to yourself but loosely. The beauty of a love that exists between two people who are free to be themselves far exceeds the limited experience you would get out of curtailed and studied portrayals of affection. Love but let those you love be. If the love is of the truest kind, they will always come back to you. A child allowed to bloom and grow without exhortations to become ‘My Son’ or ‘My Daughter’ will understand the precious gift that you have bestowed him or her with – the gift of finding their way with no fear of not being wholly accepted or loved by their family no matter what happens or what mistakes are made along the way.

In the words of the immortal Gibran - “Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself, Love possesses not nor would it be possessed: For love is sufficient unto love.”