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Welcome to Notes from the Edge, where we have the conversations we should have been having all along. We talk about the things that we're not talking about. I'm your host, Lisa Lacey, writer, trauma educator, executive advisor, and author of the upcoming memoir Notes from a Certified Mad Woman. Welcome to the Edge. Welcome to another episode of Midnight Menopausal Meanderings. This is under the umbrella of Notes from the Edge and the place where menopause, insomnia, and the disappearing filter meet in the middle of the night and decide to start asking questions nobody wants the answer to. I'm Lisa Lacy, and tonight's question is a small, simple one. Just a light, uncomplicated little midnight thought. What the hell is love? I recently finished recording an episode of Notes from the Edge with Dave Kin called Before the First Hit. It is already available on Apple Podcasts. And toward the end of that conversation, I told a story I've told in pieces before, but perhaps never fully understood. You see, my parents never told me they loved me. My father would eventually write it in letters, but those letters I didn't open until after he was dead. There is something uniquely cruel about discovering the words you needed from somebody only after there is no longer a possibility of hearing it from them in their own voice. The words existed. The feelings were there. They were written down. They were waiting for me. But they arrived too late to change the child who had already learned to live without them. My mother is still alive, and she never told me she loves me either. I do not remember being held or touched. I do not remember being hugged in the way children are supposed to be hugged, the kind of embrace that tells a nervous system before the child has language. You are safe here. You belong here. I got you now. I was touched by other adults, but certainly not in enduring ways or nurturing ways, and not in ways that taught me tenderness, safety, or belonging. I knew what it was to be touched in ways that took something from me. I did not know what it was to be touched in ways that gave me peace. And that distinction matters because a child does not simply learn love through words. A child learns love through repetition, through eye contact, through affection, through repair, through someone noticing when their body is scared and responding with comfort instead of irritation, absence, or punishment. Love becomes a language written into the nervous system. And I grew up without that dictionary. So when I gave birth to my daughter, I had to teach myself how to hug her. Think about that. I had carried this child inside my body, listened to classical music with and for her in utero. I had provided Everything she needed to live without even having to think about it. My body knew how to grow her. My heart knew I would protect her. My arms did not automatically know how to hold her. I had to consciously tell myself, hug your daughter. I had to teach myself to say the words, I love you. And not because I didn't love her. I loved her so fiercely that it terrified me. But the words felt foreign in my mouth, and the physical act, well, that felt unfamiliar to my body. And other mothers just seemed to do it instinctively. They scooped their children up, kiss their faces, and said, I love you ten times before breakfast. But I had to actually practice it. I had to override whatever part of me believed love should remain implied. I had to learn that providing food, shelter, clothing and safety was not the same as allowing someone to feel love. Yeah, for most of my adult life, providing was the only way I understood love. I can provide for a family. And I was extremely well at that and provided very well. In fact, I was the sole financial provider for my family's. Yes, I said families, plural. Apparently, I was running a small nonprofit devoted to rescuing grown adults who had confused my trauma responses with an unfiltered line of credit. That was one of my specialties. I worked because we needed money, and then I worked because I was afraid we would need money. Then I worked because it felt safer than being loved. Workaholism became a necessity. Later, it became survival, and eventually it became an identity. I could solve a problem. I could make payroll. I could handle emergencies. I could walk into failing organizations and figure exactly where it was leaking, where the systems were broken, which executive was confidently saying words that meant absolutely nothing. I was very good at that. I knew how to make things function. I knew how to make those people comfortable. I knew how to anticipate what everyone else needed. I knew how to carry other people's weight. But I did not know whether I knew how to receive love. That is much more uncomfortable to admit. Because being capable is celebrated. Being self sufficient is rewarded. Nobody stages an intervention for the woman who pays every bill, solves the crises, and never asks anyone for anything. They applaud her, they promote her, they call her strong. Meanwhile, she may be quietly constructing an entire life in which nobody has ever, never known her deeply enough. Providing can be love, yes, but it can also be control. Can be a way of making ourselves indispensable. It can certainly be a trauma response. It can be a way of ensuring people cannot leave without losing something. It can be a way of avoiding terrifying vulnerability, of saying, I need you to show up for me too. And I didn't know how to say this. I knew how to say, I've got it. Don't worry about it. I'll handle it. All right? When I finally became too overwhelmed, depleted, resentful, or furious, my go to communication strategy was slightly less nuanced. It was generally some variation of you can all the way off. Direct, yes. Loving, Debatable. Effective, Sometimes transformational? Probably not. I'm currently working with a transformational coach named Steve Barton, and we've been exploring the idea of love. Not romantic fantasy, not attraction, not chemistry, not the dramatic nervous system activating chaos that many of us have mistaken for passion. Actual love. And he you can Find him on LinkedIn has introduced me to the idea that love can show up as wisdom, can show up as trust, or love can simply be love. And I keep turning that over in my mind because wisdom does not always feel warm. Some wisdom says this is not good for you. Some wisdom says, stop returning to the place that keeps hurting you. Some wisdom says you already have enough information. You do not need one more conversation, explanation, or an autopsy of a relationship that has been dead for years. Wisdom can be love without softness. It may be the part of love that stops us from abandoning ourselves. Then there's trust. And trust is different. It is not blind loyalty, and it is not pretending we did not see what we saw. It is not handing someone access to our life because they apologized beautifully. Trust is built through patterns. It lives in consistency. It grows when someone's actions and words repeatedly agree with each other. Trust says, I can chill here. I can relax here, because the reality is not constantly changing beneath my feet. For someone raised without enduring affection, trust may feel more intimate than sex. But trust requires me to take the armor off. It requires me to stop scanning the room, requires me to believe that the person standing in front of me will not emotionally hurt me tomorrow or be a completely different person that has flipped on me. Not as difficult when unpredictability was one of your first teachers. And then there's love. Is love the thing itself, not what we earn? Not what we perform, not what we purchase through labor, beauty, usefulness, silence, or sacrifice? This should not demand any transaction. It is not withdrawn the moment we become inconvenient. It does not require us to shrink, explain over function, or audition? You know what? If I'm being honest, I am not sure I fully know that kind of love yet. But I know I've experienced pieces of it with my daughter, with my husband, when I apologize, when I'M wrong when I repair. That may be one of the purest forms of love. Not perfection, but repair. The willingness to say, look, I hurt you and I see it, and I'm not going to make you deny your pain so we can remain comfortable. I was wrong and I apologize. That is love. Maybe love is not ever causing harm. Maybe it's refusing to make someone carry the harm alone. And now menopause has arrived. Like a loud, sweaty truth serum, it's taken whatever tolerance I once had for wrapped it in a tiny ceremonial cloth and buried it in the house. Somewhere. Somewhere it's gone. I don't know. There was a time when I could over explain myself for hours. I could prepare a closing argument completed with supporting evidence, historical context, witness testimony, and possibly a PowerPoint presentation on why you should treat me like a human being. Now I'm just inclined to say, nope. One syllable, no appendix, no bibliography, no complimentary snack on the way out. My husband and I have a joke about snacks. Menopause has forced me to confront the difference between loving and being endlessly available. And those are not the same thing. Being loving does not mean allowing somebody to mistreat you. It does not require staying in constant contact with somebody who repeatedly damages your piece. It does not mean giving every person unlimited opportunities to misunderstand, betray, manipulate, or exhaust you. Even you can have nothing to do with them and still love them. I suppose I'm told this is possible. Anyway, I'm experimenting with it. My previous framework was more like I love you, I hate you, I forgive you, I have blocked you, and your name is now used as a cautionary tale in several group chats. Look, growth is a process, and perhaps love can say, I understand that you become who you become. For reasons I may never fully know, I also understand that your wounds do not entitle you to continue wounding me. That is compassionate and clear. Perhaps love can say, I do not need to punish you. I simply will not participate in this anymore. Perhaps it can say, I really hope you heal. Do it over there, please. This is the kind of boundary I'm trying to learn. Not as a weapon, not for maximum emotional damage, but definitely not to make someone chase me, regret losing me, or finally understand my value. Because who cares? Boundary that protects what is sacred without needing to destroy what is outside of it. That is way harder than telling somebody to off. Because off is fast, it's clean, it's satisfying for approximately, I don't know, a few minutes at least. But a loving and direct boundary requires way more of me Irregulated nervous system, separating anger from cruelty, telling the truth without using the truth as a blade, which I am so skilled at doing, asking to stop, confusing intensity with clarity. Now let me be clear. Loving boundaries do not have to sound gentle. They can be firm. They can be final. They can be deeply uncomfortable for the person hearing them. Love is not measured by how pleased everyone is with our decisions. Sometimes the most loving thing we can say is this relationship is no longer healthy for the both of us. So I'm going to end it. I will not continue it. And it does not require a smile, negotiation, unanimous approval. It is not cruelty. It is not hatred. And forgiveness, should we choose it does not automatically come with renewed access. That is another lesson I did not learn as a child. I learned that family bonds were supposed to override reality. I learned that loyalty meant endurance. And I learned to remain connected long after connection had become harmful. If I could just work harder, give more, explain better, become more valuable, or need less, perhaps I could finally create the love I'd been missing. But love cannot be manufactured through self abandonment. It cannot be earned. You cannot earn secure love by proving how much pain you can tolerate. You cannot earn intimacy by coming indispensable. And you cannot build trust with somebody who benefits from keeping you confused. So this next chapter of my life is not only about success, visibility, impact, or building something meaningful. It is about learning love. What it feels like when it's not mixed with fear. Whether I feel safe or activated, whether I feel seen or simply useful, and whether I am being cherished or consumed. Am I choosing someone from wisdom? Or am I reacting from an old wound that desperately wants a different ending? I'm learning that love may be quieter than I expected, doesn't arrive with fireworks, looks more like consistency, someone remembering what matters to you. Someone being able to express disappointment without fearing abandonment. May look like giving someone space or taking accountability. Or being with somebody who doesn't need you to perform happiness so they can avoid facing your pain, sitting beside someone without trying to fix them, rush them, diagnose them, or make a story about them. Love may be allowing all of us to rest without believing our value has disappeared. And that one is really difficult for me. If I'm not producing, providing, solving, rescuing, teaching, writing, recording, or carrying something, then who am I? Am I still worthy of being here? Am I lovable if I have nothing to offer or produce? That question sits underneath a great deal of high functioning survival. Many of us learned that love came when we were impressive, easy, useful, not asking for too much so we became performers. Competence was our camouflage. Strength was something. We performed well in an independent way. We performed fine while receiving breadcrumbs, because at least breadcrumbs proved someone had noticed we were a little hungry. But this chapter is different. I don't want to perform love anymore. And you shouldn't either. We want to experience it, to know the difference between love and obligation, love and guilt, love and attachment, love and biological panic of believing I cannot survive without someone. What does it mean to love ourselves without turning self love into another task that we have to be perfect at? Not needing a 20,000 step ritual in the morning or a salt lamp, or all these affirmations in a personalized playlist to prove I love myself. Maybe someday self love is simply not responding to the message. Or it is taking medication or eating something good for me or saying I can't carry it today. Some days it could be refusing to explain a boundary to somebody who is content on misunderstanding it. Maybe love is attention. Maybe we consistently pay attention to to what shapes our lives. So what would happen if we paid attention to what brings peace instead of only what signals danger? What happens when we stop rehearsing every betrayal and become studying and steady? What happens if we allow the people who love us well to matter more than the people who do not? In our head My father wrote letters and I opened them after he was gone. I found words that the younger version of me had been waiting to hear. But I don't know that I would have heard them then. I cannot go back and hand her time. I cannot place those letters in her tiny hands. And I cannot make my mother someone she is not. I cannot rewrite the touches that violated or erase them. I cannot go back and get the touches that never came. But I can decide what happens next. I can tell my daughter and husband I love them. I can hug them. I can allow myself to be hugged. I can learn that affection doesn't always come with a cost. I can receive help and care without immediately trying to repay it or feel guilty about it. I can let wisdom guide me and trust me be earned. Perhaps I can let love be something I do not have to chase. This may be the most important reinvention of my life. Not becoming more successful, not becoming more visible. Not proving that everything I survived made me extraordinary. Maybe the real work is becoming a woman who can live inside love without waiting for it to disappear. A woman who can love people without handing them permission to harm her. And someone who can set a boundary without turning it into a battlefield and Say I love you. And. No, I forgive you. And know I understand you. And know I wish you well. And you cannot continue to hurt me. That is love. With wisdom, trust. Without evidence or with evidence. You need evidence for trust. Who knew? See? It's even hard for me to say. And maybe love itself is what remains when we no longer have to abandon ourselves to keep it. I don't know where this next chapter is going to lead me. That's why I'm meandering tonight. But I know the question I'm carrying forward. What does love look like when it no longer requires me to perform? Perhaps the answer will not come in a dramatic revelation. Perhaps it will arrive in small daily choices. A hug. A boundary, apology. Moment of rest. A truth spoken directly but not viciously. A door closed without hatred. A hand held without fear. I'm going to have to teach myself love the same way I taught myself how to hug my daughter. Through one conscious act at a time. This has been midnight menopausal meanderings where the hormones are unstable, the boundaries are strengthening, and the bullshit is officially out of network. I'm Lisa Lacey, and this next chapter is about love. Not the kind I was taught, but the love I'm finally willing to learn. What did you perform in order to survive? And what might be possible if love no longer requires that performance? See you at the edge.