Have you ever been in love?
A recent post on social media about being in love proved to me two things- One, that there are more people than I imagined who felt they had never truly experienced it and that there is also an abundance of people who still believe they can. There came a point in my own life when I realized that by my own definition and experience, that I had never experienced it simply because the feeling was never mutual. I realized until you have felt it in return- in action- that’s it’s not possible to have experienced it. Giving love is one thing but receiving in alignment with what you are giving it the real plug. But everyone has their own definition. And some of those definitions can give mixed signals. There are people who cheat and will swear out that without a doubt they love the person they cheated on. And then there is a debate about “loving” and “being in love” being two totally different experiences. Your grandmother loves you but we’re talking about fall in love type infernos over here.
The Reality Check
There are people who have never been on a real date, lived with a significant other or been engaged. There are people who have been single for decades or single their entire adult lives. And while reality tv gives us love stirred with ultimatums, blindness, islands, bachelors, 90 days, spectrums and at first sightings at the end of the day, we aren’t getting paid a stipend to show up in relationships in our day to day lives.
Things will fade. Flames won’t always burn like they once did, but the foundation of love will always be there waiting for you to trust that it’s strong enough to be built upon, leaned on and loaded with all the things you will encounter in love.
Three things to remember:
- You won’t always get the love you give.
- You must be ready to receive love-healed, whole and full of emotional intelligence.
- Love despite the things that scare, hurt or confuse the living daylights out of you.
Love doesn’t always meet expectations. It can be flawed, ornery and sometimes requires gentle parenting in times when it would simply be more fun to throw a set of dishes across the room.
You have to take care of it, nurture it even. Shine it up when it’s tarnished and create your own love delusion. Not love stupidity.
You have to know what it is even when it plays no role in your upbringing. You have to be able to look in the mirror and see yourself and love what you see first so you know what love feels like when you try it on.
Because love is simply what’s left when everything else fizzles. It’s whatever keeps you off of a crime tv show episode and whatever makes you finally go in the house after sitting in the driveway surfing the web and listening to music for an hour before going inside.
Don’t Marry for Love
Simply said, find your reasons and pick them apart and rethink them all. Would you want a mate who only stayed because they thought it was” cheaper to keep her” or because they didn’t think they could do any better. No. You want someone who is vested and wants to be there as much as you want to be there. That wants to fix it, break it and fix it again-as long as it’s with you. Someone who will show you in action-not just words or cute vows for public consumption. Not someone who lied to you on a regular basis and then you expected not to lie in front of crowd at church on your wedding day.
Find you person first and then create the union because you love them so much that you are willing to push through anything with them as long as they are by your side. You want to fall in love in totality. Being in love is a full-time job and you cannot work remotely. Find that special thing. And to be honest, I am scared of people who find it every six months or who are 7 spouses deep on the wedding dates or 14 deep on engagements. Don’t sugarcoat every mediocre “union” and call it “being in love”. Love isn’t being tolerated. Love isn’t having to stay up under someone’s armpit in order to keep them -and you-faithful. Love is work but it shouldn’t feel like a 12-hour shift at an un-airconditioned warehouse in the middle of July either.
