Valentines Day is on the Horizon.....
... Which means it's time for love. Well, for some people, at least.
For myself and others like me it will inevitably be a decisively lonely day. But I'm not too worried. If all else fails I plan to sit on on the couch, eat some chocolate and watch some romance. I'm already starting to work out the movie selection. But all that will be thrown out the window if I, by some miracle, happen to have a date on V-day. One can only hope.
But, what better time to ponder the meaning of love? As a strong proponent of love and all it stands for, it is something I think about a lot. Just ask Debbie.
Here's what I find when I look at dictionary.com...
love /lʌv/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[luhv] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, loved, lov·ing.
-noun
1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2. a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
3. sexual passion or desire.
And then a portion from the wikipedia.com article...
"...Just as there are many types of lovers, there are many kinds of love. Though love is inherent in all human cultures, cultural differences make any universal definition difficult to establish. One definition attempting to be universally applicable is Thomas Jay Oord's: to love is to act intentionally, in sympathetic response to others (including God), to promote overall well-being. This definition applies to the positive connotations of love..."
Both pretty accurate, I suppose. Different people have different views on what it means to love, be loved or be in love. But since I'm not getting any input from those people right now and the only view I currently have access to is my own... and since this is my journal... I'm going to talk about MY views on love.
Over the years my opinions, much like myself, have gone through many changes. As a child love meant nothing more to me than what I was supposed to say to my parents. As I matured it took on a much more complex and somewhat hazardous form. Love, I realized, isn't just shared with those you shared blood with. It can be shared with people you've only known a short while in comparison.
While I did have a fair amount of "relationships" in my youth, few of them skated near the area of having real love in them. Incidentally, my first experience with something that felt like real love was midway through my high school career. And while that never progressed into any semblance of a relationship, it did help me to mature into the man I am now. And it also taught me two things, 1) Opportunity doesn't wait around forever and 2) True love can't exist in just one person. As they say, it takes two to tango.
My next and strongest lessons in love came in the form of a three year relationship with a wonderful girl. (I don't use the words woman and girl interchangeably. They each mean something specific to me.) Together we slowly progressed into the early stages of adulthood. We were both good kids who were simply overjoyed to be in each other's presence. In this stage of my life I learned a lot about compassion, consideration, expression, attraction, grace, romance and, not least of all, sex. Although, sadly, some of these most important lessons didn't seem to stick until the end of the relationship.
In my most humble opinion I believe that love is many things. But true love is, appropriately, the true challenge. To truly love someone is to put their needs before yours because you know they are doing the same for you. It is wanting to be with someone so bad that you feel truly pained to be away from them for too long. It is feeling such rapture in their touch that holding them is the greatest joy you could ever know. It is knowing that you could give your life away without hesitation if you knew it would save theirs. It is being able to draw not only joy but the feeling of ease in their words for you. And it is knowing that there is too little you wouldn't do just to make them happy and see them smile.
Only now, as I become the man I'm going to be for rest of my life, do I believe I'm starting to get a real handle on what I need to truly love another person. And even when my heart and my head disagree, when logic and passion are at odds, sometimes all I need is to know that a person truly loves me.
For myself and others like me it will inevitably be a decisively lonely day. But I'm not too worried. If all else fails I plan to sit on on the couch, eat some chocolate and watch some romance. I'm already starting to work out the movie selection. But all that will be thrown out the window if I, by some miracle, happen to have a date on V-day. One can only hope.
But, what better time to ponder the meaning of love? As a strong proponent of love and all it stands for, it is something I think about a lot. Just ask Debbie.
Here's what I find when I look at dictionary.com...
love /lʌv/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[luhv] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, loved, lov·ing.
-noun
1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2. a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
3. sexual passion or desire.
And then a portion from the wikipedia.com article...
"...Just as there are many types of lovers, there are many kinds of love. Though love is inherent in all human cultures, cultural differences make any universal definition difficult to establish. One definition attempting to be universally applicable is Thomas Jay Oord's: to love is to act intentionally, in sympathetic response to others (including God), to promote overall well-being. This definition applies to the positive connotations of love..."
Both pretty accurate, I suppose. Different people have different views on what it means to love, be loved or be in love. But since I'm not getting any input from those people right now and the only view I currently have access to is my own... and since this is my journal... I'm going to talk about MY views on love.
Over the years my opinions, much like myself, have gone through many changes. As a child love meant nothing more to me than what I was supposed to say to my parents. As I matured it took on a much more complex and somewhat hazardous form. Love, I realized, isn't just shared with those you shared blood with. It can be shared with people you've only known a short while in comparison.
While I did have a fair amount of "relationships" in my youth, few of them skated near the area of having real love in them. Incidentally, my first experience with something that felt like real love was midway through my high school career. And while that never progressed into any semblance of a relationship, it did help me to mature into the man I am now. And it also taught me two things, 1) Opportunity doesn't wait around forever and 2) True love can't exist in just one person. As they say, it takes two to tango.
My next and strongest lessons in love came in the form of a three year relationship with a wonderful girl. (I don't use the words woman and girl interchangeably. They each mean something specific to me.) Together we slowly progressed into the early stages of adulthood. We were both good kids who were simply overjoyed to be in each other's presence. In this stage of my life I learned a lot about compassion, consideration, expression, attraction, grace, romance and, not least of all, sex. Although, sadly, some of these most important lessons didn't seem to stick until the end of the relationship.
In my most humble opinion I believe that love is many things. But true love is, appropriately, the true challenge. To truly love someone is to put their needs before yours because you know they are doing the same for you. It is wanting to be with someone so bad that you feel truly pained to be away from them for too long. It is feeling such rapture in their touch that holding them is the greatest joy you could ever know. It is knowing that you could give your life away without hesitation if you knew it would save theirs. It is being able to draw not only joy but the feeling of ease in their words for you. And it is knowing that there is too little you wouldn't do just to make them happy and see them smile.
Only now, as I become the man I'm going to be for rest of my life, do I believe I'm starting to get a real handle on what I need to truly love another person. And even when my heart and my head disagree, when logic and passion are at odds, sometimes all I need is to know that a person truly loves me.