Love (noun)- a powerful experience in which your heart is able to feel and think beyond the capacity of reason.
i believe that love exceeds the conventional classifactions and man-made boundries in which people catagorize feelings. at times it is both wise and foolish, tragic and inspiring, momentous and remedial. i suppose love is everything and nothing. i'm still considering that.
recently i have been aware of how important love is to me (perhaps this is because i am in love right now). but then i started to wonder--- when am i not in love? since i can recall i have always been falling in love with someone. sometimes it lasts a week or a minute, other times it carries on for years.
should i be worried?
my friend suggested that perhaps i wasn't actually in love at all. based upon the length and level of my feelings i was probably just infatuated. she also contested that i was probably more in love with the idea of love than the actual person itself.
this is bullshit.
also, let me just say that i have never actually understood the concept of infatuation. it has always been my knowledge that being "infatuated" with someone means you THINK you are in love, but you're actually not. infatuation is supposedly just a foolish, fleeting feeling (like love is ever rational). so if being in love is an abstract notion, and it's not tangible, and there is no way to physically prove it to anyone else.... well how is being in love any different than having an infatuaiton?
basically they are both human constructions. if you think you're in love with someone and you feel like your in love with someone, then you obviously are. thinking and feeling is the sum total of what anything is. why do people feel an obligation to certify emotions with some kind of retrospective, self imposed, authenticity? and when did such an illusive and intimate experience aquire so many rules?
i guess the way i see it is a bit more simple--love is love. no matter how many times you've loved before- it's still love. or if you love someone more than they love you in return- it's still love. and whether you only love someone for a few minutes or a few years- it's still love. i think some people go their entire lives honestly believing that the only love out there is the kind that is identical to their own. love is not a mirror.
i think what i like most about love is how it can be the opposite of you. love challenges you to be something and go somewhere you could never have gotten to on your own. some of the most self-actualizing experiences i've ever had were when i was taking a chance in love. this of course is not to say that those experiences were always story book endings. God knows how i have trudged through some epic tradgedies that have left me wrecked and ravaged. i guess it's always been my philosphy that EVERY experience is a possibility. even in times of defeat i celebrate, because i know eventually i will get through it. i will simply brush myself off and move on. why not celebrate this chance at life and strive to grow as much as we possibly can? love and the hope of finding a love that's worth the risk has just always been apart of me since i can remember.
No comments:
Post a Comment