You never mean to fall in love. If you mean to do it, it’s not really love. You aren’t going to fall in love with every other person you date either. If you feel like you do, it’s not really love. Just because you dated someone for a long time doesn’t mean you were in love with them either. Think people. Love is more special than that. It’s more than the butterflies, more than the attraction, more than the laughs and the good times. It’s more than the history you have together, or what you’ve been through together. Love is all those things, but it’s more.
I’ve been in love once, and do you know how I know it was love? Because I’m still in love with him. Since the day I met him, I’ve continually loved him more and more, and my love has grown.
It started as a fourteen year old girl, hopelessly infatuated with a fifteen year old boy. It continued through childish mistakes, fights and anger, jail and growing up. I call those the dark years, the years I think both of us would rather forget. This isn’t to say there weren’t good times. Just not very many.
Then, we went through two years of zero contact. Don’t get me wrong, I thought about him every day, absolutely, without fail. When I became a christian, I started praying for him every night, which led to dreaming about him every night, which led to thinking about him even more every day. It didn’t dominate my life as much, but even though he was nowhere near, he was never away from my heart.
Then we got to friendship. We had the best times. He made me laugh like no one else possibly could, it’s a purely joyful laugh that warms me from top to bottom. We could talk about anything, and everything, no matter how stupid and insignificant, no matter how private and personal. We were completely comfortable with each other in any situation. Once he just picked a booger in my car, and then couldn’t get it off his finger out of the window. But weirdly, I wasn’t that grossed out. That’s pretty much where we are now.
I’ve basically described the parts of love that I included in the introduction. I can’t explain the “more”. You’ll have to feel that for yourself. You’ll know. I promise.
Of course I have my bouts of heartache. Here’s why: I am in love with him. He is not in love with me.
So the only experience of love I have to go on, at least in the romantic sense, is completely one-sided. This is one of the most important things you people need to learn about love. Whether or not you love someone has nothing to do with reciprocity. What does that mean? It means the person you’re in love with does not have to love you back for your love to be valid. It’s sad, and it hurts when that happens, but it does. Here’s the other side of this point. Just because someone loves you a lot, doesn’t mean you love them back. Please don’t fool yourself into believing you love someone just because they love you. It’s not fair to either of you. The point is, being in love with someone doesn’t mean you’ll actually be with that person. It sucks, but there it is.
Another thing I’d like to point out about love. Young love is one hundred percent legitimate… sometimes. Don’t ever let someone tell you you’re too young to be in love, because you aren’t. You don’t have to know exactly who you are, and they don’t have to have it figured out either. That’s one of the ways you know you’re truly in love; as you grow and change, he grows and changes, and your new self falls in love with his new self. This is called growing together, and its essential in true love, especially true love resulting in marriage, because you will continue to grow your whole life. But don’t cling so tightly to the idea that you’re in love that you can’t recognize mere infatuation when it infects you. You don’t have to be in love to date someone, enjoy each other’s company and have a good time.
Sometimes even though you truly love someone, you’re not in the right place in your life to have them with you. Don’t be afraid to stop talking to them. If you’re really in love, that love will not die. Something very significant about love is that it means forever. If you don’t mean forever shawty, love isn’t the word you should be using. Try “adore” or “really really really like” or even “care about”. Love really is everlasting.
Have you ever heard the quote, “love is friendship, set on fire”? It really is. You should be totally yourself around the person you’re in love with. You shouldn’t feel self conscious or awkward, but totally at ease. At the same time, those certain glances, the way his hand brushes yours oh so slightly, these things should cause that nervous flutter, the insane butterflies that you swear are on crack. If you’re lucky enough to be with the person you love, their kiss should make you catch your breath, and their embrace should make your heart stop. All these things, while still feeling completely comfortable together.
Sacrifice. Love means sacrifice. It means you sacrifice what you want, to make the other person happy. In some cases that means you don’t get to be with the person, but you smile when they start seeing someone new. Sometimes it means smaller things, like giving up watching you’re favorite t.v. show so that he can watch his favorite team play. Sometimes its big things, like leaving behind all of your friends and family and everything you ever knew to move with him so that he can try his hand at polar bear wrestling. I’m just throwing ideas out there. Basically, they come first.
Aha! But before you get comfortable with that idea, let me holler at you with this one. YOU CANNOT TRULY LOVE SOMEONE UNTIL YOU LOVE YOURSELF. That’s right, I said it, and it’s true. You also can’t truly make someone happy unless you are happy. Make sure you take care of yourself and don’t go nuts trying to sacrifice your whole life for this person. It shouldn’t be something you mind doing anyways, if you’re truly in love.
Anyone could write about love for hours. I mean there are so many different kinds of love; all I was talking about here was romantic love and still I could go on and write pages and pages more. Maybe I’ll expand on this one day, but tonight I’m tired, and I want to go daydream about my love.
Positive Vibes.
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