Love is such a vast idea to comprehend fully. Before deciding to speak on this subject I was wondering if I was even qualified. I’m single with no children and my longest relationship has only been for three years. Not to mention it wasn’t the best relationship either. Who am I to speak about love? For all I know especially considering my experiences with love I probably have never experience true love. I always imagine what it could feel like to be with someone in a committed monogamous relationship. I’m afraid to say it but I’ve never had one. I’ve had a string of dysfunctional relationships and if it wasn’t cheating that made it that way it was substance abuse from the other party or just inconsideration or non acknowledgment   of my feelings and/or person. Guess that’s why it has taken me so long to truly love myself because if you don’t love yourself then you will accept many things just to have acceptance.

Love as I have researched is something that is sustained by action, a pattern of devotion in the things we do for each other every day. That would imply that it  sometimes requires sacrifice. One is giving of themselves in order to please another. If that is true then it would mean also that you show love in many ways which include but are not limited to listening, acknowledgement of feelings, acts of service, affirmations, consistency , honesty, loyality, integrity, showing respect, and giving. Its hard to determine if someone really loves you though just through these mediums alone. People often express themselves in different ways and can also express themselves in ways they have learned from their past experiences. If a person has been used to being hurt from others then over time I believe that person will have trouble expressing love because they will feel like cultivating love could cause them to be hurt. I find myself in this category a lot of times. I get a little close and then I disappear or stop communicating. Its almost like when you touch a iron as its heating up .You can feel the heat coming in and as soon as it gets to hot you take your hand off . You might tap it a few times after that to see if it’s still to hot but then you eventually stop understanding that it will stay hot.

An important thing to differentiate is lust over love. I think it is so easy to confuse the two. Sometimes you met a person and the physical attraction is there and it’s everything. You feel that you could be in that high forever and you want to, however that feeling a lot of times clouds your judgments and blurs your perception of who you think that person is that your infatuated with. You can’t come down from the euphoria and enchantment that the physical relationship offers you. It usually is an instant gratification and not the kind that can support or sustain a long term commitment. The high comes and goes and you can’t let it go because you become addicted to the momentary satisfaction provides. Now given my past circumstances this is something I’m all to familiar with. Time and time again I have felt the enveloping of lust disguised as love only to be deeply disappointed by the illusion. On the other hand in true love ( as stated by so many people in long term commitments that I have spoken to) you grow in love and grow to love the person more and more. The acts of service , affirmations, affections, and closeness inspire you again and again over time which allows the love to grow deeper as time goes by. Initially it may not start off so deep. Maybe it was a casual acquaintance and started off as a friendship that grew. My theory is that when something starts off as a friendship there is no pressure to perform no pressure to impress. You can just be yourself and coincidentally you become intimate. If physical attraction sparks after friendship then it seems to be the winning spark that true love is made out of. A spark ignited from this space seems to grow more beautiful over time .

Seeing how love has so many facets it would also be good to mention how one loves a job or career. One can love a hobby or activity. That is also a love that can grow over time .When you first have the initial attraction to the thing it starts off slow just like a friendship and grows more and more deep over time. I guess one could say that love is that thing that grows over time and isn’t the thing we think which is the lustful notion of something momentary. The deepening over time that is expressed as love shows itself in many ways such as with family, friends, careers, activities, and even charities or causes. One can be dedicated to a cause or charity so deeply that there love is expressed through a “ pattern of devotion”.

Many of us can agree that love comes in all forms and can be expressed in many ways. It’s safe to say that at some point in life love has come to touch you in some way. Love is a neutral party and what we do with love is our own choice. We can express it properly, we can experience it profoundly, or we can through it away blindly. The biggest thing to know about love is that we all have an opportunity to allow it in or shut it out and that usually will be decided based on how we have experienced it in the past. I would suggest allowing love in. At the end of the day love can always be there to heal as well.

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