Nothing and Everything to do with Italy

I read the beautiful story of The Velveteen Rabbit yesterday. If you haven’t read it you must. And because lately I have been thinking a lot about love found and love lost and the price we sometimes pay for love (by myself and friends) I wanted to share this thought with someone.

This is a story about love. In the beginning of this story a hobby horse and a stuffed rabbit discuss the process by which toys become Real. “It doesn’t happen all at once, like being wound up,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” (The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams Bianco)

We have really been sold a bill of goods about love. Books, movies and music create an idea of love that doesn’t exist. Love is not the endless romantic journey that we have somehow convinced ourselves it should be. For such a long time I didn’t get that. It has taken me years to understand that love is a very messy thing. It is possible to love someone wholeheartedly and still hurt them. It is possible to love someone and still know that you shouldn’t be together

I know what I want. Like the rabbit in the story, I want to become Real, with a capitol “R“. And I am well on my way. I have loved hard, and been loved. I have caused unbelievable pain and I have been hurt. I have lost my way so many times, yet I have never been truly lost. Through all of this I have become strong, I hope I have become wise and I know I am capable of loving and being loved beyond my wildest dreams. All the dents on my heart and the scratches on my soul make me beautiful in a way that could never have happened in a fairy tale kind of love.