Love. The romantic kind, of course.
I would have to say that I am in a strange place about this word. "Loving" a person has completely changed me, not only because with that person I was shown exactly what love is not, but because of the things I learned within myself knowing that my own was and is genuine.
If I had never loved, what would I have learned?
Through being shown a false display of affection labeled "love," I have been able to more clearly define what love is for myself. But I also understand that very few people in this generation (to my knowledge) even understand what they are saying or expressing. And that is my cynicism.
For instance, a person can go from one lover to the next in fairly short periods of time, claiming that they "love" each person. You mean just as you "loved" all of the other lovers you abused and hurt more than you could possibly comprehend? That is a twisted and selfish way of love.
And the selfishness seems to be a common trend in what we view as "love." We convince ourselves that the person we "love" is the one who is going to "make us happy" and "make us feel good." We couldn't imagine our lives without them, we have a constant need to see them and speak to them, and so on and so forth.
These things aren't bad initially, until they become addictions. We become addicted to the other person. It's a mistake I've made several times.
But love isn't selfish, it's selfless.
I've spent a lot of time over the past few months being sure of what love isn't, not because I think about it on a regular basis but because people in my life have shown me for themselves. I witness it around me all the time. Materialism is not love, marriage is not always love, and neither is simply telling a person that you love them and then treating them as if they never mattered to you in the first place. It isn't sex, because any two people can have sex.
We need to define love for ourselves before we are ready to say it to another person. We need to define it to the person we're telling it to. For me, love is sacrifice and unconditional. It is accepting a person entirely for who they are no matter what mood they're in, what they've done or how they may have abused me. It is seeing myself in another. It is forgiving the most difficult things to possibly forgive. It is supporting someone in anything they want to do. It does not end, even if its form may change.
But it is meaningless to define "love" for ourselves and then not act it out in everything and everyone we do love, romantically or not.
I'm sorry my definition was so vastly different from yours.
But it ain't no big thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment