8-minute memoir revisited

"Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend." Martin Luther King Jr.

Sometimes I feel I'm a broken record, writing the same stories over and over. I've written before about several people with whom I did not exactly hit it off, but who I later came to view as a close friend.

I was thinking about this recently and about how this happens. I love Brene Brown's work on vulnerability and wonder if perhaps the short cut is when someone shows you their heart--even if briefly--which illuminates a path for your love to work it's way in.

A friend of mine (Internet friend, of course--we've never met IRL) recently wrote a Valentine's tribute to her husband. It wasn't soft of mushy. In fact in it she mentioned she is not easy to love and described both her husband and herself as hard coolies. But then she went on to pay tribute to some of the great qualities she noticed and admired in him.

I think that's the key. When presented with a hard cookie who doesn't present an easy target for your arrow of love, maybe you can pass the time waiting for a brief glance of vulnerability noticing and appreciating the good qualities of said person. The way this person makes the world a better place.

Perhaps in the absence of vulnerability, appreciation can be the conduit of love that may soften, somewhat a hard cookie. If nothing else it will certainly soften one's on heart.

And perhaps the only perception over which we have control by which to identify friend or enemy is our own.