Let’s Talk About Love
Being in love has always been difficult for me. It is challenging, frightening, and thrilling all at once. Love is a very real, powerful force that teaches you to think beyond your naturally self-absorbed mind.
My childhood experiences led me to become an independent woman at a young age, an admirable characteristic that comes with a cost. My mind tricks itself into thinking that there is no one out there who can take care of me better than I can take care of myself. This is not an entirely false statement; however, the objective of finding love in another person is not to reduce your ability to take care of yourself. Love is all about taking care of yourself in order to take care of another person too. Love does not provide a band-aid to life’s problems like one hopes, but it provides you with someone to navigate those problems with.
A foreign concept to many, misunderstood and misinterpreted, love is not easy to define. Love can only be defined by its hosts. There is nothing I could say or write that would define the love between two individuals. It is a language they created and can only understand. Love is the intertwining of two souls. It is a dance that moves freely. Love has no spoken rules yet, to be in love means to abide by an unwritten code.
The funny thing about this unwritten code is its reliance on free will. Love is a choice, not a fleeting feeling. To love someone, to truly love someone, means to actively choose to love them every day through the way you speak to them and listen to them. It is your conscious behaviors and actions that must embody the love and respect you have for one another. Love is not something you let play out. If you do that, you are only taking yourself out of the game.
Love is not something that appears on your doorstep, nor is it something you can buy at the grocery store. So when you finally encounter someone who makes love “easy,” hold onto them.
Love is not something to take for granted. It requires nurturing, patience, trust, empathy, and balance. It is about weighing two different perspectives before making a decision. It is about listening before reacting. It is about continuous learning and growth. Love requires being in tune with yourself, having self-respect, and being able to communicate your boundaries with your partner before they are crossed. To be in love is to feel in sync and rhythm; it's as if you and your loved one are on a separate wavelength from the rest of the world.
