This is a recycled blog that I first posted in February 2012.
It’s not a Valentine declaration for a significant other – instead it’s an exploration of how we can find love every where we look – whether we are single, double or otherwise…

Dear Love

So here we are – you and I – together, quietly, with everything in place. And because I’m sort of stubborn, this letter nearly didn’t happen – simply because some one said to me ‘and of course if you’re writing love letters, then you’ll write a letter to Love …’  Now see, these are MY love letters and I get to make up the rules… but any way, yes, here indeed it is…

So… awkward pause again… here we are… And what to say / how to start? Well the starting is the thing with love isn’t it? It can crop up unexpectedly, unbidden – suddenly shaking your world; or then again it can creep up on you and slowly envelop you, falling softly on you and through you, like a feather floating down from the sky…

And it can start as a glance, a realisation, a declaration; something known, or on the tip of the tongue; it can be at the back of the brain or from the bottom of the heart … And love comes in many shapes and shades, then forms itself in solidarity or as shimmering waves.

So it’s not surprising then that we don’t always see it in our space.  However, spend a little time with love and you realise how much of it is around; despite the fact that so often we can be strangely pre-occupied with how little of it we have in our lives.  Yet love is an abundance when you consider it in its’ every kind.

Let’s begin with the old cliché of loving yourself – the very best place to embark on this journey, in my own writerly opinion.  For me that is a waxing and waning; and far from loving myself, sometimes I can be my own worst hated enemy.  Yet self is the starting place of all our loves, so we must take care of loving ourselves.  Pay that first love its due, treat it with affection, shine a light on it and show yourself that you are loved.  And the easiest way to do this is to be kind to yourself – do not silently chide or scold you and don’t listen to the dark voice that tells you that you cannot… be loved… Instead, love yourself.

And it reaches out, this love – to those around us, born to us, sent to us by fate as friends, chosen, gifted, sought.  So if we are not healed and solid in our own hearts, how can we reach out for more and give of our own best love?

For love moves and grows and can also stay unfettered in our being, unacknowledged for those around us, not named, when it should be praised and thanked and explored.  Well I’m biased in this of course, for these very letters are a gratitude of love, an exploration of, a voyage through it.  And to my surprise they were largely unchartered waters, so I simply trusted and sailed upon them – sometimes through choppy waters and sometimes through calm, turquoise bays.

Where to sail to next?  Love is in many ways is the simplest of things and then again it can get so obscured.  How strange that at times it can feel it’s way through our hearts as such a strong force, and then again be something that can wane away, grow pale and die. Does real love really die?  I say no: I say you may not feel its’ force in your daily world, but there it lies and shall shock you or sooth you when it rises out of the past and introduces itself to you again.

So to those friends and lovers who have titled me that way in the past, then moved on, please don’t think that you don’t live on in my heart, in some semblance; and never, ever imagine that you have left me for good (or ill).  Love doesn’t work that way – it is alive, even when dormant, and even when it’s object is on a distant unseeable horizon.  And I understand that you may say that you love that thing or that one, no more.  Yet I reply that love changes, transmutes, shifts and transforms.  It can hide, but is always there, around and in you.  Love has been your lesson – providing the research for the life that you life now.  Love is what makes you; love can guard you, buoy you; and when you think that you lack it – shrivel, shrive and waste you.

If then you appreciate love in all its’ forms and not only the romantic him / her version – your world expands; the frequency of love vibrates in you, it pulses and increases and comes to you often and more – so much more when you choose to see it, in all its every glory.  Quite simply like attracts love … and so this letter ends ….

    With love, love, love … from Me xxx

PS: Love in ALL its’ forms is explored and celebrated in the book of the blog – Peachey Letters – Love Letters to Life published in paperback and kindle.  For a St Valentines’ Day special offer of a signed author copy – go to my website now and buy the paperback for just £7.99!