Brave.

I have always recognized romantic love as an exercise in bravery. I married my first real boyfriend because I did not tread lightly. Practiced forgiveness and rebuilding and wounding and trying agains for the last 26 years. Romantic love is brave and has consistently required that of me.

Friendship love also feels brave to me. I tiptoe slowly, methodically into heart friendships. I am selective and hesitant and guarded. I reserve my let down for a few, prizing quality over quantity. Friendship, while full of good fruit, is risky. I've always needed bravery for it too.

Now, I would venture to say that if we asked the people closest, "brave" would not be on their top three descriptors of me. It's not my go-to. You will not find me signing up to sky-dive, or deep sea anything, or go more than 4 miles over the speed limit. Because why?? One friend described my spirit animal as a "sloth." Attempting to numb a tiny bit of the offense, she said, "It's just that you are so careful. So thoughtful. So not quick to make decisions."

Touche.

Maternal love, however, did not register for me as an act of bravery. For goodness sake, I intentionally did it 6 times in 6 years. It felt like the easiest, most natural form of love to me. It required zero thought or intention for me to literally lay down my life for them. It was not brave. It just was.

Until now.

Kelly Corrigan hit me again with this realization in her recent TED talk. In the thick of navigating the relationships and boundaries and launching of young adults, it was these lines:

"The final act then of the truly brave is leaning back and letting them go. The reward for all this bravery? Not gold medals, not hero shots for Strava, not ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange, or owning the dinner party with Burning Man stories...

Maybe not even thanks. The reward is a full human experience, complete with all the emotions at maximum dosage, where we have been put to great use and found an other-centric love that is complete in its expression and its transmission.The reward is to end up soft and humble, empty and in awe, knowing that of all the magnificence we have beheld from cradle to grave, the most eye-popping was interpersonal.

So here's to anyone who notices and reads between the lines, who asks the right questions, but not too many, who takes notes at the doctor's office and wipes butts, young and old, who listens, holds and stays. We, who, untrained and always a little off-guard, still dare to do love. To be love.That's brave."

It's hitting home that perhaps this maternal love is the bravest of them all.

Because what feels natural is one day, suddenly cut off.

And we have to lean back and let go.

We are left with empty resumes and hardly a thank you card. For 25 years of 24 hours a day...

The reward?

The full human experience. An other-centric love. Empty and in awe.

The full cycle of family love does take bravery.

The adult kids who make their own choices. The spouses they choose. The kids they bring home. We start again each time. Each day.

Daring to love.

All in.

Not for the gratitude or pay check.

But the maximum dosage of being human.

Brave face.

Onward.