What I Think Love Is (REPOSTED)

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I first posted this blog on Monday, January 08, 2007. I am reposting my original ideas of what I thought love was three years ago with my current thoughts interspersed throughout in italics.

What I Think Love Is

I believe I have been in love only one time in my life. I should be thankful I have actually had that experience.

I believe this is still true. But the ONE time I feel I have truly been in love is with YOU.

I think maybe the initial thrill of falling in love is so intense that it might HAVE to change.

I still think it has to change and vary over time. Can it keep its initial intensity? I still love you, and it feels more intense at certain times more than others. But I wonder if we had met and fallen in love 20 years ago if we would we be as “in love” as we are now.

I’m not sure that that intensity can last forever, so there’d better be something there after that initial thrill subsides. Maybe that is where communication and commitment come in. Mutual respect is a given.

I know you have questioned if I really know what love is. I realize you are more experienced in this area than I am; you have been in love with men other times in your life. All I really know is from my experience with you.

Uncle Ben once shared with me in an email his belief that our culture misconstrues the concept of love. He never fully explained his concept of love to me. I wish he had, because the love he shared with Aunt Gladys seemed to be the truest form of love.

This is part of what he shared with me in that email:
"Your comments on 'feeling' in your relationship, I think, need to be examined a little. Emotions are certainly a part of 'love'--too much in our culture; but there is more to it than that. Love is a matter of the will--as in the two Great Commandments: 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your being, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.' Feelings will come and go depending on a lot of things, but they are an uncertain measurement for an inquiry into the foundations of marriage, and the living out of it year in and year out."

I think being in love is wanting to share yourself TOTALLY - being completely open with that person - TOTAL trust and acceptance. It is sharing your opinions, values, dreams, desires, fantasies, fears, and insecurities, with no fear of ridicule – within the safety of knowing you are loved and accepted unconditionally; being totally vulnerable yet completely content in all-encompassing mutual love.

We have shared most of these things, and for me it is as wonderful as I had imagined it might be.

I think being in love involves TOTAL acceptance of that person – including accepting flaws, differences and differences of opinion, weaknesses, idiosyncrasies, quirks, faults, and all – without ridicule and maybe even cherishing them.

I think it is the desire to care for, share with, accept, protect, support, cherish, comfort, confide in, make love with, cry with, laugh with, tease lovingly, kid with and feel comfortable doing everything and nothing together.

I cherish doing these things with YOU.

I believe it is the yearning to spend the rest of your lives together. Being with that person makes EVERYTHING seem right.

There is NO other person I would rather be with.

I wonder if this is all just a fantasy to want this or to think that I might find this and actually experience living in love someday.

Thanks to YOU, I’ve found it is NOT a fantasy. With you, I have experienced living in love. If I would die tomorrow, I have experienced something that many never experience in their lifetime.
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