What is love?
So one of my friends from school posted a blog with this question. Wondering if love was spending the rest of your life with someone enjoying their company, forgiving and forgetting. Or is it love when you find someone who never annoys you? Here's what I came up with:
It's hard to give one, universal definition for love, because it's so subjective. You think of all the ways you've loved and been loved by another person and hope the rest of the world will agree. But to sum it up with as much truth as I know...love is real.
It's seeing another person for all that they are, especially when they're being their ugliest self, and wanting to be that one person who will love that extra kick of insanity and brokenness that every human being possesses. It's having that much trust and comfort in each other than you can see each other at your most desperately honest self. It's feeling safe and vulnerable. And you find yourself thinking:
I like who I am when I'm with you.
And then you say it out loud. And the other person agrees.
Because the person you love opens up the best of you that's hiding up your sleeve (yes yes...that is a John Mayer song reference) and you didn't even know it was there. Being in love is going mad from the person's absence, wanting to talk and laugh and all that. Love is going a few, decent days without that person, but then you find yourself watering the plants, making dinner, and all the other trapping of an average day, and you realize, Even if he/she were just sitting in a chair over there, not even saying anything, just being, today would feel significant.
There will be fighting, because finding someone who doesn't annoy you...is not a real person. They're hiding their annoying bits until they feel more comfortable with being their whole selves. You need someone who gets under your skin, and fighting is healthy because it makes you realize that you do care, that you're fighting for something. There's the further realization that if you can get through this fight, it will only bring you closer, and you will see each other more clearly. You chip away at all the distracting bits, the miscommunication, the defense mechanisms, all to come to the bare bones of the matter--that you really enjoy the other person's company, and that thing he/she did was not cool--now how do we move forward together with all the love and respect in the world? You'll wear each other out emotionally sometimes. It's a sacrifice. But in the end, you're learning and growing together, and that's what matters.
And I will just say that falling in love, opening yourself up to another person and letting her/him in, can be the scariest thing you will ever do. But you'll miss a whole other world, a huge, beautiful dimension to this life if you don't take the opportunity.
As for the rest of your life bit...foof. I've heard it said that the "like" is more important than the "love." It's something to think about.
And that is what I like to think I know about love...in a nutshell. And other people will have other definitions. I think the best is learning your own little definitions and believing wholeheartedly in them.
It's hard to give one, universal definition for love, because it's so subjective. You think of all the ways you've loved and been loved by another person and hope the rest of the world will agree. But to sum it up with as much truth as I know...love is real.
It's seeing another person for all that they are, especially when they're being their ugliest self, and wanting to be that one person who will love that extra kick of insanity and brokenness that every human being possesses. It's having that much trust and comfort in each other than you can see each other at your most desperately honest self. It's feeling safe and vulnerable. And you find yourself thinking:
I like who I am when I'm with you.
And then you say it out loud. And the other person agrees.
Because the person you love opens up the best of you that's hiding up your sleeve (yes yes...that is a John Mayer song reference) and you didn't even know it was there. Being in love is going mad from the person's absence, wanting to talk and laugh and all that. Love is going a few, decent days without that person, but then you find yourself watering the plants, making dinner, and all the other trapping of an average day, and you realize, Even if he/she were just sitting in a chair over there, not even saying anything, just being, today would feel significant.
There will be fighting, because finding someone who doesn't annoy you...is not a real person. They're hiding their annoying bits until they feel more comfortable with being their whole selves. You need someone who gets under your skin, and fighting is healthy because it makes you realize that you do care, that you're fighting for something. There's the further realization that if you can get through this fight, it will only bring you closer, and you will see each other more clearly. You chip away at all the distracting bits, the miscommunication, the defense mechanisms, all to come to the bare bones of the matter--that you really enjoy the other person's company, and that thing he/she did was not cool--now how do we move forward together with all the love and respect in the world? You'll wear each other out emotionally sometimes. It's a sacrifice. But in the end, you're learning and growing together, and that's what matters.
And I will just say that falling in love, opening yourself up to another person and letting her/him in, can be the scariest thing you will ever do. But you'll miss a whole other world, a huge, beautiful dimension to this life if you don't take the opportunity.
As for the rest of your life bit...foof. I've heard it said that the "like" is more important than the "love." It's something to think about.
And that is what I like to think I know about love...in a nutshell. And other people will have other definitions. I think the best is learning your own little definitions and believing wholeheartedly in them.