We are born emerging from the womb, a warmth and comfort we will probably never feel again in our lives.

In the first quarter of our life we are exposed to all the elements: cold, hurt, pain, rejection. We slowly but surely build armor around our thin, delicate skin…scales of protection against the harsh reality of the world…but…

It also seals out that pure love from others and encases our own pure love inside our hearts of stone.

Our first love is innocent, scary, vulnerable, exciting, awkward…but the pureness is still there. We say “I love you” quickly and we embrace it with the naiveté of someone who hasn’t yet experienced heartbreak. That one stays with us…forever.

When that first love doesn’t work out…in many cases after years of trying to make it work…we begin that slow descent into numbness, building layer upon layer of shield…cutting off our hearts from that pure love we are born with.

I heard a song tonight driving home. It brought back a nostalgia of memories of that first love and the first signs of doubt, well before any breakup, that revealed to me that life is not all roses…I found my first few thorns of that relationship…but the beauty and the scent kept pulling me forward.

On the drive home I was remembering the purity of that love despite the thorns. My love at that time was my best friend. Nothing can ever replace that. I will never have a best friend in the same way. This love represented my childhood blossoming into womanhood, discovering who I was with this person…this man who will always know the person that I was before adulthood…the “me” that wasn’t tainted or jaded by disappointment that life tends to bring down with the rain.

But then I thought, “Am I really that different from the 18 year old person I was then, listening to this song in a club in Cancun, Mexico?” Deep below the layers of hardened fear, insecurity, and misgivings was that pure love that I was born with. The core of me is still there waiting to be exposed, waiting to share with the right someone.

My twenties and well into my thirties brought the torrential downpour: hail, wind, thunder, twisters, lightning. I resisted everything true and real. I made mistakes…so many mistakes. I reacted in fear from the pain that life had decided to deal me, not realizing that I was actually creating most of it. We generally do create our own pain. We are the makers of our own reality. Our pain turns inward, materializing as chaos to the outside world.

In the midst of all that, I met someone. He emanated pure love…his light reached outward, and I was drawn to him. He saved me in a way. He was the one who brought me hope that love still existed and that I didn’t have to be a teenager to feel that innocent love. It was he who helped me begin to peel away the layers of hardened shell. It was he and others: my therapist, my daughter, and even my first love who forgave me for pain I had caused and who chose to still be my friend despite our painful past. I slowly began to build faith not only in love but in myself. He was love number two…we are all lucky to find true love once, let alone twice. There was no riding off into the sunset with this man, but he gave me back my innocence. He started the process for me of peeling back every layer of mud, clay, marble, and brick that I had put between my self and my heart. He helped me find my pureness again. I had lost it through pain, mistakes, loss-of-self, confusion, and chaos.

I saw this amazing man this year after five years of being apart. I witnessed his beautiful wedding. Nothing had changed between us…not really. Pure love doesn’t change. How we express it does, but I was so appreciative of the time we spent together and that I was able to be a part of his blessed life, his marriage, and share a few moments with my friend whom I will always cherish.

The rest of my life will be spent finding my way back to that pure love that I was born with. This feat is NOT easy. We all carry so many moments of pain with us that are difficult to overcome. We live with fear, insecurity, doubt…all developed from our upbringing. As adults we have the capacity to annihilate these self-defeating emotions. Ultimately, we have to reach deep into our hearts, chisel away at the hardened stone and let those toxic emotions melt and drain away out of our bodies.

I met another amazing someone over the past two years who I thought might be “the one”…I chose to open myself up to him, I exposed my vulnerable heart, and I dared to love this person. In the movies, it would have worked out…my happily ever after. In reality, it didn’t. The third time (or love) was not a charm. But throughout my journey and my gained wisdom I have realized something. Anything pursued with a pure heart is worthy of experience and acknowledgement. What I felt was pure…not blocked by fear, insecurity, or pain. I went for it. What I have discovered through this experience and others is that the love doesn’t leave. It can’t. It definitely transforms for sure, but that is the lesson of letting go. The purest form of love lets love exist as it is meant to. I love this man as much, if not more, than I did during the brief time we spent together. The difference is that I send that love outward through my thoughts, my wishes, my memories, and my prayers. It is the same with my first love, and my second.

Give thanks for those experiences. Their purpose is to bring us closer to ourselves, our purpose, and the purest form of love…self love. It is through heartbreak that we truly find that love for ourselves. I began that journey after my first love crumbled under the weight of necessity for self-discovery, planting the seed of my own growth. That self-love grew and blossomed after I met, fell in love with, and subsequently ended my second love. He watered my self-confidence and helped me find my innocence again. Once blooming, I fell for the third…but by then I was strong enough to sustain my own beauty and self-care. He was like a bee, taking from my nectar, kissing my petals, and then moving on to the next flower. But I am reaching skyward…my fate still floating in the air like pollen. Where it will land, I have no idea. But what I know is this…pure love is the main ingredient from which we are all made. We are meant to spend the rest of our lives emanating that love, but we have to remember that it’s there first.

If you are lost, alone, sad, depressed, desperate, despondent, numb, wilting like a flower…all that means is that you don’t remember that you were born as pure love and you have the power to water it and emanate it at any given moment. You simply have to shed the fear, the insecurity, and the pain. It is a thick coating of illusion created by your environment. All you need is the proper remedy to rinse it away. Natural things do that: rain, flowers, sunsets, friendships, laughter, birds singing, walking in the grass, smiles, love.

It’s simple. Fear not. You are love. It is the reason you exist. Let go of pain. Let go of expectation. Let go of toxic people. LET GO. Read, sing, laugh, whistle, breathe, run, play, think, meditate, be in nature, spend time with people who soothe your soul and don’t take or steal from you. Learn to exist for the sake of existing. Life is so short. Embrace this moment and every moment. It is so cliché, I know; I didn’t always get it myself. But if you do things that feed your soul, eventually you will get it, too. The only thing in life that truly matters is LOVE…and it begins with YOU.