Growing up as an only adopted child by older parents was perhaps one of many reasons why Melissa lived a sheltered life. The snow and ice afforded her much time indoors and with the family, so they were her safe haven during the difficult years. Her diary went amiss after years of writing fantasies and dreams, so writing went amiss as well.

Romantic love and sexual love had been foreign to her for the most part of her life. Melissa had no problem loving, being emotionally attached to others. She did not know sibling love; even though she had siblings that she had not grown up with because of being adopted, she did have other relatives that she likened that love to. 

Friendships were vital to her so when she had friends that were compatible it wasn’t hard for her to become emotionally attached, but not sexually. 

Her mother, God rest her soul, had reiterated the fact that sex was something you did not do unless you were married.

Melissa married, only to find that the true fulfillments she had longed for were not in those confines either. But, she married for the wrong reasons and true love was not the tie that bound the heart. After trying it twice to the same man, she threw in the towel, but the children were constant reminders. It was evident in her mind that what she was searching for did not exist. So she raised her children as a single parent, making all the necessary sacrifices for their well-being, watching them grow into adulthood with a mother’s pride. 

After Melissa's daddy died, this love came-whether it was a reality, a figment of her imagination, or a dream come true , blooming love began to fill the empty pots in the dark rooms of her heart. 

In mid-life, after more years of oneness than anyone would truly believe, her heart was invaded in a way like never before. Every dark corridor of her heart, every room that had been closed off and now full of cobwebs became enmeshed by love. 

Please understand it just was not conceivable that anyone else could hold a key to the front door. Melissa had always envisioned her heart as a house, with many rooms. She would allow a particular one into a particular room, or she would designate certain rooms for certain ones. But never before had she allowed anyone access to the whole house. The main reason for that, she guessed, was because she did not want to experience heartache as she had in the past from certain ones whom she had allowed into certain rooms, and especially from the father of her children.

She had even likened her ability to love wholeheartedly to a pressure cooker. Here is the process in pressure cooking: 

[1]As the internal temperature rises, the pressure also rises, until the pressure reaches the design gauge pressure. In some designs, a relief valve opens, releasing steam and preventing the pressure from rising any further. In others, the pressure regulator weight begins levitating on its nozzle, allowing excess steam to escape.(Taken from wikipedia).

In other words, Melissa would only allow her love to reach a certain level before she would have to open the relief valve to prevent her heart from being totally consumed.

The pressure cooker process had been a way of life for her for most of her adult years…but not so now.

This love removed the pressure cooker mentality—the walls were down, no more barriers, no more inhibitions, just total unconditional love now abided in her house.

Love bloomed in fertile soil, and as is the case with so many in this life, it bloomed in later years rather than younger ones. So was the case in this story. Sometimes the longer the soil had to be fertilized, the easier it was when the right seeds were planted.

This love that consumed Melissa’s heart brought more fulfillment in every arena than any love ever experienced before.

Life is not fair, it is not simple many times, but it is rewarding when allowed to be. 

When someone now says that love in his or her life is unexplainable, it hits a familiar note in her heart. Experiences that are explainable have a way of being status quo.

It is the unexplainable that seems to penetrate the emotions and allows an opening of the mind and heart to be able to experience meaning in a deeper depth and higher height!

But of course, sometimes life can never be explained, or understood…it just has to be lived, loved, and learned in every conceivable and inconceivable way!

Dare to let blooming love penetrate your heart if you have no love at all, or even if you have loved and lost.

[2]Alfred, Lord Tennyson said, “I hold it true , whatever befall; I feel it when I sorrow most; ‘tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

 

D.S. Mullis

Copyright.2009

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