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Learning About Love before/after When I worked with inner city kids, I learned about love. They live such compact, intense lives. Before eighteen, they've fought and bled, perhaps killed, or seen murder, had bad drug debts, bad drug habits, sex, children, noteriety, blood feuds, pain, fear, desperation, and had an arch enemy. I do not say this to promote their life-style. The gang culture is backward, and promulgates negativity. The life-style of the inner city hipster is much like it was in the middle ages, nasty, brutish and short. But they love. They love on a level that those who live three times as long as they sometimes don't seem to grasp in all that time. And its likely because of circumstance. Grabbing what's there to hold onto for security is part of it, to be sure. But its also the fatalistic sense that there may not be a next week. And I put up an emotional wall, or tried to do so when I started. That's what they tell you. To be detatched. Otherwise you burn out. And its tough to stay detatched to kids. It really is. The wall started to crumble with my first father's day there. Kids all over coming up to clasp my hand, or pat me on the back, "Happy Father's Day, Mr. Argentum." Initially, I didn't get it. "Thanks, but I don't have any children." After awhile, I realized. And after awhile working with children, you realize all the clinical aspects of the job. You know how to do it. But the final element is not there, and it needs to be there. The only way to raise children is to love them. And it freaked me out. Always, in my mind, love, declarations of love were sacred. I never told my friends. And I could be with a girl for years, and it would never escape my lips. It was monumental. It was huge. And inbetween co-workers telling me they loved me, friends I made at the center, and children mistaking me for their father, I realized the fundamental truth. Love should be freely given. There should be no conditions. It should be easy. It is not jealous, nor circumspect. And there is a definite shortage of love in the world. Then I raised the kids with compassion, clinical skill, and a healthy dose of love. Love for them. Love for life. Love for humanity. And since, I have not looked back. Not much time passes that I do not tell a friend that I love them. And I make sure my family knows. I give it freely, and easily. I am not a fool. I am not blind. I am not taken advantage of, nor do I use love as a tool to take advantage of others. It is a spice added to the other ingredients of life that make it all the more sweet. I am loving. And as a result, my life has improved.
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