When I was a little girl, I remember reading stories and seeing movies of a man and woman in love. I imagined it to be so effortless, endless and an unconditionally happy experience to go through; and I couldn't wait to get older to go through that. Naivety is such a comical trait that we possess. Little did I know that the 'perfect' picture of a true love that falls into your lap, and lasts forever doesn't exist for most of us. I think that the first thing we need to understand that the idea of perfect love is just that, an idea, not something realistic.
Love is many things to many different people, it's rarely ever the same for everyone. Some people, well at least most people I know, like to have a defined and established definition of what love is. This idea comes from the Good Book, the Bible, in Chapter 13 of first Corinthians. It goes like this:
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast. It is not proud. It is not rude. It is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects. Always trusts. Always hopes. Always perseveres. Love never fails."
If love is what is written here, then to be honest I've never truly loved completely. I have been loved and have loved very few times in my life and each time was different. Not once though has the love comprised or resembled what's written above. Don't get me wrong, I believe in a love like what's written, I hope to one day find that kind of love, because only then will the fantasies and ideas I once held as a little girl come true, because a love like that will be amazing to experience. But for right now, because time and life has made my heart a bit rough around the edges, I think that the ideals expressed in that Book are just that, IDEALS. Realistically as I said before, love is something relative, it means and is different things to different people. It means one thing to you, and it means other things to me.
Love is made up of various things; to some its emotional, physical, material and so on. Some loves are purely based on one of those elements, others contain even bits of one or the other. Life is taught me some lessons on love, it has removed the rose colored lenses that I had on and showed me to view things in a more realistic and practical lens.
The first thing I think I've learned about love is that it should never be painful, nor should it hurt us to be loved and to love another person. Love, to me, is one of the strongest positive experiences we go through and it should never result in negative emotions/feelings.
I also believe that love can change us, but it should be a good, positive change. Love should never change us to a point where we become unrecognizable to others, and most importantly to ourselves. It's like this; you can love someone and want positive changes for them but if they have to change so much to the extent that they become another person altogether; then that's not loving them , it's loving someone else. It's also not you loving them for them. So we can be altered by love, but never should we be disguised by it; meaning simply that who we truly are shouldn't be hidden.
Life has taught me some tricky, confusing and painful lessons in love. One of the hardest and most confusing lessons is that sometimes you can love somebody so much, but you have to let them go. Loving someone sometimes mean that you love that person so much to acknowledge that it's best for you both if you let go and walk away, because as I said earlier you should realize that love shouldn't hurt us. So while you can love them with all your heart, if it breaks your heart by being with them, I learned that if you love them the best thing you can do is to let them go, save that person and yourself- the hurt.
Most times people think that 'true love' means endless, life long love between two people. I've come to realize that when you love, if you're truly blessed and it is meant to be, it's eternal, while other times it's a seasonal/periodical experience. Love and relationships aren't like the movies guys and girls; rarely do we fall in love and it lasts till we die. Relationships end, love is often one sided and unrequited, and sometimes it ends sooner than we'd like it to. My parents are divorced, so I learned that not all loves are for a lifetime, but just because they end doesn't make them any less valuable in our lives. Each time we love is important, good things come out of it to make life better, and bad things come out of it to show us that life isn't a bed of roses but we learn and we press on. It helps me to remember that when I love someone, even if it doesn't work out, they were placed in my life for a reason that whether I understand it now or later is important to me.
With love, sometimes it's necessary for people to have to make compromises, to 'meet in the middle' so to speak. I believe however that while love is about compromising parts of ourselves, it should never be about compromising all of ourselves, or who we are. That is to say that if you have to compromise the majority or all of who you are as a person, it's not compromise anymore, that's extremism- and that's not right.
In love, sometimes unfortunate and hurtful things happen to those involved; and then comes the phrase of 'forgive and forget'. This is always easier said than done, and although you decide to forgive the one you love of hurting you or a mistake in the past; you almost never successfully forget what they did. To me loving somebody means that if they've hurt you, as unfortunate as that is, you forgive them and it, and you you forget it. Because by not forgetting, by not letting it go, you then hurt the both of you; I think it's impossible to move happily and comfortably into the future if you carry aspects of the pasts that are hurtful. If you really love someone, you forgive them, and you also truly forget.
For me, when in love with someone, we should be able to love ourselves, to be truly happy and comfortable with the individuals that we are. Loving somebody shouldn't result in you loving yourself as an individual any less.
Another critical thing I have learned about love is that while love can infuse us, it should never consume us. When all that you are is wrapped up and contorted into loving someone it tends to get dangerous. If all you have and are is loving that person, and everything in your life is consumed by this love, then God forbid should it end, then you'll have nothing. I believe love should enrich your life, but it should never engulf your life. Okay one more, love should be a significant part of your love, but not your entire life.
As corny as this is going to sound, love is 'you', 'me' coming together equally to bring about 'we'. Being in love shouldn't be the elimination of 'you' or 'me', the 'we' shouldn't take over those two elements. Basically I think that when you love someone, the two of you as individuals shouldn't get lost or be less important than the two of you as a couple.
Love is a tricky thing. At the same time, it's the one thing that we all pretty much want to experience, and it's something we all should experience before we die. Love to me has been and should be something emotional, physical, practical/logical and spiritual. I think it should be all those things neatly and aptly combined to result in something that makes me, and the person I love happy ultimately.
