Love Letters and Other Heart Warming Things.

I follow this blog called A Blog About Love.  It is a husband and wife couple who share their story, after two failed marriages (one from each of them) they fell in love over email, set up by a mutual friend and were eventually married.  They are an inspiration, and I love them. (I secretly want to be them, but I recognize that that would be weird...so I want to be LIKE them.) A few days ago they shared an excerpt from a book filled with letters. 


In the book, Steinbeck: A Life of Letters, there is a collection of letters written by John Steinbeck to family and friends.  Among this correspondence is this beautiful letter written to his eldest son, Thom, in 1958.  Thom had recently confessed to his parents that he had fallen desperately in love with a girl named Susan, while at boarding school!  (ahhh...)   

New York

November 10, 1958

Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning.  I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First -- if you are in love -- that's a good thing -- that's about the best thing that can happen to anyone.  Don't let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second -- There are several kinds of love.  One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance.  This is the ugly and crippling kind.  The other is an outpouring of everything good in you -- of kindness and consideration and respect -- not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn't know you had.

You say this is not puppy love.  If you feel so deeply -- of course it isn't puppy love.
But I don't think you were asking me what you feel.  You know better than anyone.  What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it -- and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.
The object of love is the best and most beautiful.  Try to live up to it.
If you love someone -- there is no possible harm in saying so -- only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.
It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another -- but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I'm glad you have it.
We will be glad to meet Susan.  She will be very welcome.  But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to.  She knows about love, too, and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don't worry about losing.  If it is right, it happens -- The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Love,
Fa

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Is there a better way to describe love?  Have you felt this way?  I'll let you in on a little secret...I am feeling it.  That is another story for another post.  I hope that today you feel love, a love full of goodness, an outpouring of everything good in you.

There is nothing better than knowing you are giving the best of who you are to something or someone.  Be the love you want, give the love you wish for, but most important, BE HAPPY WITH WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW.  Things can always get better, but they can also get worse. And trust me, it has taken me years of stumblings and heartache to recognize good when I see it.  When you find it, you'll see what all the fighting was for.

I bet you never saw that one coming :)