Friday, January 8, 2010

What is Love?




Most people would say, "It's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all." But looking at my past, I really don't think that is the case. People who are hurt and damaged who don't love themselves can not truly love others. They can feel infatuation, lust, obsession, what passes for love, but what they think is love isn't really love.

And that's the truth about me and my ex.

But looking back at what we once shared, from the outside looking in, most people would say what we had was "Love". While we were together, he swore he loved me, and I swore I loved him. And we both meant it – fervently.

But the evidence wasn't in favor of either one of us.

Love doesn't disappoint, take for granted, verbally abuse and deliberately dupe another person. Because that's irritating, disrespectful and ultimately devastating.

Nor does love cling so tightly to a fantasy and a dream of the future that it completely dismisses another person's reality. Because that's unrealistic, disrespectful and ultimately life-strangling.

In lying and breaking promises to eachother continuously, we proved we did not love eachother.

We both experienced love as a noun: an indescribably good feeling, the object of the verb making.

We didn't experience love as a verb, with all the selflessness that it entails. He didn't love me enough to show up, to support my dreams and aspirations, to want what was truly in my best interests. I didn't love him enough to be spacious, to let him be him, to hear what was always being said under the surface.

We both did the best we could, based on who we were at the time, and we both called it love.

Then when sugar-sweet love turned to vinegar, we both fled.

I still don't know what true love is, but I definitely know a whole lot more about what it's not. And that's a good lesson and a good start.

5 comments:

  1. Yeah I think we all have that person that ends up being our definition of what Love isn't.

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  2. First paragraph alone was so profound.

    "People who are hurt and damaged who don't love themselves can not truly love others. They can feel infatuation, lust, obsession, what passes for love, but what they think is love isn't really love."

    So tru!

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  3. There's a lot of truth and sincerity in your words. Some of us feel that way but don't quite know how to express it. The movie Love Actually comes to mind, thanks for sharing your views, very insightful. (Quote from Sana "Love blossoms...grows...as relationship progresses..")

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  4. People talk about falling in and out of love... if you could do either, it isn't Love.

    Love
    Is
    Eternal

    If it isn't, take the first letter from each word and you'll have what your love was... a LIE

    So many, want love so bad that they'd try to create it out of anything that feels good, normally sex. Since sex feels so good (if done right) it is what people believe love is, when it is nothing more than lust, if love didn't birth that sex.

    Wow :)

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  5. i need u 2 update more often. im hookd. randomly came across blog on another persons blog

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