My favorite Whitney Houston B-side song is Lover for Life on the I’m Your Baby Tonite album. When the song came out my 5th grade heart sang a sincere love song to a lover who would never get away from me.
A few decades later Lover for Life is the song I sing in the bathroom mirror spotted with water stains to remind myself I am my most committed lover. I am the only lover who will be physically present with me for my entire life. This is a valuable mantra for lovers like me who are healing from abandonment wounds, relationship ruptures, painful breakups, and anticipate the grief of losing lovers, mothers, and others to physical death.
As my own lover for life, I am the one who believes most deeply in the power of my love to transform me into the lover I desire to become in all relationships. Today’s love practice includes releasing harmful narratives that are barriers to intimacy, remaining in the discomfort of conflict, and allowing myself to be witnessed and held accountable as a lover. Loving myself today also includes reclaiming agency over my body after experiencing periomenopausal weight gain and being body shamed by a former lover for having “rolls”. I am the one responsible for speaking tenderly and with compassion over my body first. I am the one called to hold the integrity of a love practice so true to me today, I will astonish myself as tomorrow’s lover. I hear myself in a very real and near future saying, “I didn’t know my love could feel this good to me.”
There are three other song titles on my lover’s playlist from Anita Baker,Luther Vandross, and Lucy Pearl. All of which testify: I am today’s prayer and today’s lover.
today’s prayer is best experienced by dancing with me. play a song in the prayer or choose your favorite love song, dance neeekid around the house, and let love be your life force. as it is.
as love,
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