Thank you so much to each and every one of you who have not only participated by submitting a love story but also those of you reading them!  Not everyone is in a mind frame to share their thoughts on LOVE in such a public way.  But my hope is that in some small way, these stories on the Guest Blogger series for February, and my open sharing of LOVE on a daily basis will give you some food for your heart and soul. Because let’s be honest, we could have everything yet have nothing if we don’t have the most important thing which is LOVE.  And as we have read so far, love indeed comes in so many forms…

…like for instance, today’s author, the lovely Sarah from Ireland.  She has a totally unique and refreshing experience of LOVE.  How wonderful to go along the journey with her and it’s always great to learn more about my favorite subject!

Love Stories

I have always, as far back as I can remember, been obsessed with love stories. From a young age my favourite films consisted of epic love stories such as the ones in Dirty Dancing, Pretty Woman, Ghost, My Girl, Four Weddings and A Funeral, Gone With The Wind and its 6 hour sequel Scarlett. I just loved the idea of LOVE, the sheer romance and at times devastation of it all.

I was a flower girl at my uncle and aunts wedding when I was 2 and every time we visited their house after their wedding, I insisted they put on the wedding video and would sit entranced for 2 hours. They knew well when it was finished, as I would literally be in floods of tears and inconsolable because it was all over. This was my routine until my first cousin came along a few years later! I have over the years watched my mother’s wedding video, again quite inconsolable. It’s ironic because one of the two things those wedding videos have in common is my favourite piece of classical music to this day, the Love Story Theme by Francis Lai (Listening to it now while writing has me in tears again!) a strong musical feature in both.

The other feature they had in common is both those love stories ended in heart-breaking circumstances. I think I started watching my mother’s wedding video from the age of roughly 12. And I know well that I was crying because of the heart-break I endured through my parents separation and also seeing people that passed away, oddly enough I found it therapeutic to watch. But I often wonder though, why I was so inconsolable at age 3-6 when my uncle’s wedding video ended. Was it just because the video had ended or was it because my psychic senses were foretelling how the story would really end? Again another irony was that it ended quite similar to the film Love Story. The two lovebirds in question, 4 children richer and still very much in love, were to be ripped apart by the cruel passing of my uncle at 36 years of age. And when I look back now, when I watched those videos at such a young age, I must have had some psychic sense of what was to come, because I remember feeling this deep sense of sadness at the time, the same feeling I have right now while writing this.

And so for many years my understanding and experience of love has been quite bitter-sweet. Any time I thought I felt it in the past, I smothered it with my ideas of what I thought love should be and retreated at the first sign of heart-break or danger. This is what it was like for me up until I realised that for somebody to really love me, I had to truly love myself first, only then would I meet the person who would show me the true meaning of love.

I have always believed that everything happens for a reason and that our destiny is mapped out for us. I read a life-changing book called “Journey of Souls” by Michael Newton and the book documents what happens to us before we are born and when we die. In the book, it explains that we have a soul group and within that soul group we have soul mates, this resonated deeply with me. I have always instinctively known that there was someone out there for me, that I would share real love with and that would love me in the way I have always known I deserve. In early 2013 I had gone through my third break-up and although I was devastated at the time, I had a strong sense that better was to come and that I had yet to experience that real love. I was driving along in my car one night, not long after said break-up and a song came on that I had definitely heard before but had never taken much notice of. It was called “Hands to Heaven” by Breathe. I listened to this song every night before going to sleep and imagined saying “goodbye and we’ll meet again” to my soulmate.

Months later, I decided to move to London and was excited to gain total independence. I knew nobody and very little about London. I had a few ups and downs at the start but I found my way and quickly settled into London life. Fast forward another 5 months, having been single a year and finally knowing what it was to love myself, I felt ready. I prayed to God and told him day and night that I was ready, to please send my soul mate. In the meantime I knew I would have to be proactive, so I joined 2 online dating websites “for the craic of course!”. One May morning, while waiting for the tube to work, Paddy messaged me! We swapped messages for the whole day, chatted away easily, seemed to have lots in common and best of all, he was Irish! Thursday came and there was no message, I was a bit bereft but being the stubborn woman I am, I left him off. He must have gotten quite a land because on Friday he wasted no time in asking me out on a date for Saturday! We met on the Saturday in Golders Green, instantly felt a deep connection, had another date the following Friday and needless to say the rest is history! We fell madly in love and were pretty much living together after a week. We shared the many ups and downs of London life – work stress, drinking sessions, hangovers and the biggest laughs we have ever had there, this was the foundation our relationship was built on, rock solid. A year into our relationship we felt that London wasn’t the place for us anymore and we decided to move back to Ireland.

On our final journey back to Cork from London, I was listening to my iPod shuffle and “Hands to Heaven” came on not long before we landed home. I literally had not listened to that song since before I left London. I knew this was a sign, that Paddy is my soulmate and I silently thanked God for reuniting me with him.

Our love is not obsessional or based on needy attachment, I firmly believe now that type love does not last. Our love is goes far deeper than that. Our love is built on total acceptance of each-other, acceptance of our great faults but also acceptance of that which makes us great. Our love is built on the great foundation of shared humour, wit and laughter. Our love is built on strong communication lines. Our love enables me to put his needs before mine and vice versa but in an equal way. And best of all, I have learned that our love strong, enduring and ever-lasting.

So to finish this story about Love, I would like to say that I am ever so grateful for all the wonderful love stories I have come across in my life, they encouraged me to keep searching. And I am eternally grateful to be here writing my own love story, a story of love that I believe was and always will be…eternal.

A little bit about me – I have been blogging since April last year and since the new year, I finally feel I have found my niche in which I am blogging about self-development and personal growth. I started my Professional Coaching business back in November and I am also training to be a Play Therapist. I am passionate about life, love and happiness and that’s why I decided to start up my blog, to share that journey with others.

Blog: Merryme.ie
Business Website:Merrymecentre.ie
Twitter – @merrymeblog
Facebook – @merrymeblog
Instagram – sarah_merryme
Snapchat – themerrymeblog

Thank you so much Sarah for your open and honest love story. I am glad you reached out and offered to submit a story. While we haven’t met, after reading about your journey I feel we have. And I hope this inspires others to participate in this unique virtual nest of LOVE sharing ! For having never hosted guest bloggers before, I am so glad I did! You are all very special to me and have touched my heart!  God bless you!

Journey of LOVE,

YDP

P.S. If you’d like to get involved, leave a comment for me or email your love story to: [email protected]