People say I am boy crazy and it's at least a little bit true. I am very "relationshipy" and I've had many boyfriends. But as many times as I've said those three words, I have only truly been in love twice in my twenty-seven years. To me, and maybe this is where I am a realist, love is not a quixotic, unexplainable, mystical phenomenon that creeps up on you. Love is simple. I define it as the "pull" toward someone or something. It isn't the feeling you get when you are with that person but rather, the feeling you get when you are not. It is the ever-present desire to surround yourself with your object of affection, which ranges from mundane to complex manifestations of that desire. That might sound neurotic or obsessive, but it seems to have happened to everyone who has ever been in love.
When was the last time you went to the grocery store and realized that you never buy plain cheerios anymore because he doesn't really like them as much as the honey cheerios....and only mid-way through that fleeting thought it dawns on you that he has been gone six years? It doesn't go away. It never will. This is not a trivial matter, the cheerios. Think about it, something in you changed because you loved that person. Your freedom to act on every whim was forever altered. No longer will you ever look at the cereal aisle the same, even when you think you do. And whether you've realized it yet or not, your mind is not as powerful in these matters as your heart.
Obviously, sometimes the signals are not as dramatic or telling... maybe there are things that have changed you on a deeper level. Maybe he or she changed your whole philosophy....and continues to do so. But the crux of love is this: it changes you. My favorite way to describe being in love is that all your craziness suddenly has a purpose.
Love is only the third highest need in Maslow's hierarchy... But don't dare try to convince someone who has lost a love that there is anything of greater importance in the world. A lost love is probably the one thing that sticks with you as long as, say, having a child or stepping foot on the moon. It's that monumental. If you don't think so, I would argue that you didn't truly love the thing that was lost. And sometimes, sadly, you can know that only once it's gone for good.
But all love is not lost. In the occasion that your love continues, grows, and evolves, then you are one of the lucky few. See, people do not stay the same for long, they change. Adapting to that change is without a doubt one of the 7 Wonders of the (Emotional) World. Love cannot thrive without renewal and that comes through change. I am by no means an expert, but I believe that the key to weathering the lowest lows and embracing the highest highs starts from a seed called Trust. Some people are really good at this. Others, like myself, tend to shy away from situations where I have to put my faith in someone or something. I always figured that the only person I could rely on was myself. This has been a virtue in school and work, but a severe detriment in love. I wasn't always this way either.
My first true love I was able to trust with all my being. And it was pure, unadulterated trust! I did not trust him because that I thought he walked on water, or that he would do everything right and make sure life was just the way I wanted (not too hot-not too cold, like Goldilocks) - rather, and more importantly, I trusted that he would do everything in his power NOT to hurt me. He was just that kinda guy. It was me and him against the world. That's what our trust was built on. I believed that when I was hurt, he was also feeling just as much pain. We were in it together. He hated seeing me cry. It would make him cry! He wasn't a wimp, but he had very very deep feelings for me and for the world. He was a dreamer like me, a true visionary. He saw the horrors in life and wanted to shield me from them...now, he was usually unsuccessful in protecting me, but that's not the point. He cared about me SO much that I honestly couldn't see how we would ever separate. Until one day we did.
My world was rocked so unbelievably hard. I awoke to see that everything was still intact - except my trust. Somehow I had gone from thinking that love could be a many splendored thing to thinking that fairy tales only exist in books. I learned from that and grew immeasurably. But I was still hurt, and any snippet of hurt that I experience nowadays is felt tenfold. But I keep trying. And I think being willing is more important than being right.
Willingness cannot be underestimated. When your little seed becomes a sappling, you've reached level two in the laws of love. The second lesson in weathering the ups and downs of love is to GIVE. If you don't have the capacity to sacrifice some of your needs and desires for another person, you should not pursue a love relationship. It's been said, one who dares not touch the thorn should never crave the rose. That's what this is all about. Being giving means not asking what that person can do for you in return. This kind of giving should come relatively easily ... and regularly. It need not be monetary or tangible. It could be a massage, time alone, or a shoulder to cry on. Lovers intuitively sense this about one another. I think. Call me idealistic, but how hard is it to see that someone needs something? I am pretty sure humans have been programmed to "see" when someone needs something. The only caveat here is that it is NOT always clear WHAT a person may need. Those who tend to like shoulder massages usually give pretty good shoulder massages. But those who tend to like shoulder massages are absolutely awful at giving a person time to be alone. What I have come to realize over the past year is that our needs surface in a relationship all the time. The thing that distinguishes a good relationship from a bad one is how those needs are met, ignored, or answered the "wrong" way. Granted, this takes time to learn a person's unique needs...but it should never be something you don't want to do for the person you love, mostly because you TRUST that this will be good for you both in the long run....and you see the light peeking through every dim day when you look forward to holding that person again. That's something you won't foresake for your own temporary gratification.
Your tree of love is fully realized when it holds up to the third law of love:TIME. This is the one I have a good bit of trouble with because it is closely correlated with patience. Love takes time, precious time. Love takes time apart, to realize how much you really want to be with that person. Time together, to ensure your time apart is justifiably unpleasant. Time to see, since certain things can only be revealed after you've grown to a certain level of ONENESS. Time to spare, because you always end up doing what seems like nothing for entire stretches of hours or days (but that's ok with you). And if you don't have the stomach to wait it out, then maybe it's not worth it to you. That's ok too. Sometimes things aren't worth it. The good part is when you realize that. Time is not something that can be rushed or taken back. Love will stand the test of time whether you want it to or not.
Those are my thoughts on LOVE.
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