Love comes first...

Much thought can occur on the road. This was the thought that lit up my night of driving back to Charlotte.

Starting from scratch...
I have had the hardest time trying to figure out where all my motivation and fire went for playing tennis. It has not come natural for me lately to do the things that I used to love to do... like go to bed at a decent hour, work out in the morning, for example.

So I was listening to hours and hours of music on the road and my brain just seemed to be a pile of mush the whole time, with no music really sparking me to think about anything worthwhile. That was when I decided to put some real music in, U2 - Achtung Baby album. Instantaneously my heart and mind came to life again as if I had never heard the album before in my life, although I've heard it hundreds of times, literally. My mind was enthused by the catchy, intelligent lyric and musical brilliance and my heart was warmed by the heartfelt vocals of Bono. It was as if I noticed instantly that that was real music and everything else was crap to me. I was already thinking of selling it all on Half.com, but that's another story. But really, when someone sings from the heart you know it immediately, especially because not too many singers do these days, but that's another story too.

Now rewind even more, back to what I've been thinking about for a long time, but especially these past couple of weeks... a woman. Not just any woman, but the right woman, the one that I can love and really spend a lifetime with. I've dated much, but loved rarely.
Now get this, the few times in my life when I did, that was when my motivation to play tennis, train, and all the stuff listed above plus much more, was there in full swing. Not to say that the times I loved were spoken of or that the relationship was going smoothly, but just that love was in the mix (or should I say 'balance') and it was given high priority. Now I know there are several different kinds of love, but the one with a woman seems to be the most all-encompasing, as far as earthly love goes. (I'll talk about other types of love in another blog later on.) This is the love I have been lacking, and this is the love that I need to put on a higher priority level than it has been... well... ever, if I wanna live my life here on this Earth to its fullest potential.

Now I know that finding true love takes time and takes much patience among a billion other things, but it's worth it...

I heard on the radio yesterday that more people are getting divorced than married each year and it has been like this for the past 10 years or so and only getting worse. This, along with seeing it happen all around you with friends and family can make even thinking about the love I am talking about above pretty discouraging, to say the least, let alone talking about it. That feeling breeds fear of love and is only making divorce that much more common, and true love that much less common. Well I'm here to tell you I'm not afraid of true love. In fact I pursue it on a daily basis. I love watching it in movies and frankly I love love!

"Faith, Hope, and Love remain - these three - and the greatest of these is Love." 1 Corinthians 13:13

Signing off from Matthews, NC...

~ Nate