Love

Someone told me last night that i hadn't blogged in a while. They were right. This was on my mind today as i worked today; sadly and rarely on a Sunday, so i thought i would share it.

I thought about love.

I spent years and years trying to come up with a definition for love that made sense to me. I was always unhappy with people who seem to throw the word around without much thought. It frequently seemed as if all the people who were using the word didn't seem to know what it meant themselves, they were just throwing the word around because they felt they were supposed to.

I was never really sure what people meant when they said it.

"You make me feel good" sometimes seemed the meaning. "I'm sorry" it seemed to mean other time. Sometimes it simply seemed to mean "Goodbye".

In addition to having trouble figuring out the meaning of word via a person's immediate context, there came the overarching way the people interacted with each other versus the supposed meaning of the word. I know people who spoke to each other, treated each other, in ways that wouldn't be considered loving by anyone's definition, yet still tossed the word around.

Whatever the meaning was, i had pretty much decided to stop using the phrase until i could figure out what it means, or at least what it means to me.

After years of thinking, i came up with something that made sense to me. Love to me really wasn't a feeling. Don't get me wrong, feelings are certainly involved, but it was something you do. An action. You can feel a lot of things, but those feelings don't always translate into loving actions to others no matter how "loving" the feelings are.

So my definition was pretty simple. Not an emotion, love was the simple act of putting someone else's needs or wants ahead of your own. It could be something as simple as small as letting someone else have the last cookie even though you want it yourself. It could be something as large as giving someone a kidney. In any event, the loving thing to do always involves putting someone's needs ahead of your own.

So i was once again free to start using the phrase again, as long as i did my best to use it within the confines of my own definition. If i was going to tell someone i loved them, i needed to make sure i was also walking the walk, and doing my best to put their needs ahead of my own. This is obviously easier said than done. For me it isn't about being perfect, it's about deciding each day to try and this a little harder than the day before.

I came up with this all a while back, maybe 2 years ago. Things since then have changed a lot. Within the past 6 months i have met the woman of my dreams, realized a lot of the manufacturing i was frequently attempting in previous relationships, began to understand how "easy" things can be when you find the right person, and now find myself planning a wedding.

I think my definition of love is continuing to evolve.

Don't get me wrong, i think my definition is accurate. It just may not be complete.

Finding that right person for myself opened my eyes to more than i understood before. Most of it is still a bit overwhelming and will take awhile to sift through. It's good though. I have the rest of my life to understand it. I have a partner to understand it with. I can't wait to see where the journey goes. I can't wait to see the new things my eyes will be opened to.