Friday, February 25, 2011

[no title]

I have a friend who has recently taken to blog posting almost every single day. I find her posts fascinating most of the time and I really feel like I know her better after reading each one.

I'm not sure why I'm not the kind of person who blogs on a daily basis. Perhaps I just feel like no one really cares enough to want to read what I have to think or say every day. Even if they do, I would feel like I have to come up with something interesting or profound every time I write. (This is why I would never be able to be a real writer, I think--I'm too worried that there is someone out there who won't like it.)

See? Even now I don't know what to say. I think I'm just bored.

Okay, I found a train of thought (it's pink and rather than steam it emits heart-shaped bubbles)... here we go.


How do you know if you're in love? How long do you have to be with a person before it can happen? Is there even an answer to this? I'm so frustrated by this. Hollywood will tell you that it can happen in a single look or after a single encounter. My Dad will tell you this too--he knew he wanted to marry my mother the minute she walked into the place he met her. This is kind of ridiculous, because I think it took my mother much longer to fall in love with him. Still, they've been married 25 years now so love obviously is still there for them. My life experience has told me it kind of varies--some people fall in love in a month, some 6 months, some a year.... Some people are quick and decide that even the smallest amount of emotion beyond "liking" someone is love while others don't even realize they're in love until it's too late or at least almost too late. So how do you know when you're in love?

Maybe my whole issue isn't a matter of "when." Perhaps it's a matter of "what" love is. As in, how do I know when I am in love. I know I've loved someone before, I know it. But then it kind of just... died. How does that even happen? The thought is petrifying. Can that just happen?? People change, sure... but isn't love supposed to surpass all of that? Maybe I wasn't in a "deep" love. Okay, so that relationship is over, but what about other relationships, new ones? I know what love feels like it, but I don't think I would recognize it if it slapped me in the face. I feel like I started from scratch on this one--seriously I feel like I wouldn't know whether I was in love or not. Maybe I am? But no, it's too soon isn't it? Perhaps it's just powerful, deep infatuation--which is probably even more intoxicating and dangerous. Can't I just have an epiphany to know whether I am or not? Someone just tell me!

I think maybe I am having the first inklings of it. Maybe. Sometimes I worry if I'm the type of person who just falls in love with every person she is ever with--DANGEROUS. (Being a caring person can screw you, you know.) The thing is, I think love is a journey. I think you can fall in love instantly, sure--but not into the kind of love it takes to commit your life to. I mean, I wouldn't say yes to a proposal tomorrow, no sir. But I think if he dropped the ILY I would return it. (This is why I refuse to say it first--I'm too unsure... and maybe scatterbrained.) I think it will grow. I think that if I really do love a person I will love them to whatever degree I'm meant to--whether it be just the first inklings of it for a month or two, or the perpetual, end-all be-all of loves.

Now if I were listening to someone ranting and raving about all this like a panicked blonde in a romantic comedy, my advice to them would be to just go with it. I am the kind of person who tells everyone that "everything happens for a reason." And I'm not b.s.-ing here; I DO have that faith, I do. But like most people I would do well to take my own advice. To step outside my brain for a minute and look at my thoughts objectively. So, I will, indeed, "just go with it" and keep my faith that "everything happens for a reason," believing that I will be happy no matter what happens in the next few months, years, lifetimes.... But I feel better now.

4 comments:

  1. <3 you. And I think you're right. Whatever it is will show itself when it's ready to.

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  2. I find myself engaged and on my way to a marriage I know will last a lifetime.

    I sometimes feel obliged to "admit" to people the tiny possibility that something could happen for the sake of letting them retain skepticism (who am I to take that from them?) but the words coming from me are entirely unbelieved in myself with as much conviction as the most devout believer looks to the joys of heaven. In my heart, I know there isn't a chance this will fade.

    And I wish I had caught on. I wish I had seen it happening, had known when it did, so I could have been that girl with the answers, able to impart some wisdom onto my friends and someday my children... but I saw it all only in the moments and in the hindsight. I've known this man for coming up on three years now and for two of those laughed at the idea that we would ever even be a couple.
    But it happened... and it's going to be that way forever. And I absolutely know that.

    And I wish I could tell you how. Something more solid than the way he looks at me like I'm a treasure, kisses me with his voice, or all the little things that just add up the right way.

    Unfortunately, all I can tell you is all those people that have ever said, "You'll just KNOW..." well, they're pretty much the most right people so far.

    I think that's okay though - it leaves all the beauty of discovering love like this for you and yours to venture through together. I think that's far better than a bunch of guesses and messy love-smeared attempts to explain it from another point of view.

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  3. I. love. this. Good thoughts :) It's like we're raised to believe that, when you love someone, a switch gets flipped inside of you and then you "know," forever; but that's just not how it happens. Well, not for me, at least - and I hope not for other people, or that would just confirm my occasional suspicion that I'm defective (everyone has that sometimes, right haha?) But anyways, it seems like it really does come down to your actions, every moment, and your choice to stick with your commitments even when you really, really...really aren't "feeling" it.

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  4. Caits--thanks love. :) I think it's funny the way my blogs work--my conclusions always end up being what I find myself resolving to do.

    Sharkey--I really enjoyed your commment. It sounds like you are marrying your best friend--and I think that is so important. I feel like marriage has to be something that you could only take on with someone you truly enjoy doing everything with. Thank you for your optimism :) And your response does indeed offer me an answer. The way you put it reminds me that love isn't something you can let anyone else tell you that you have--you have to experience it for yourself.

    Madison-I can promise you I have often had the thought "Am I the only one who's ever felt this way??" Surely we are not defective! I don't think it's a "switch" either. At the end of the day the decisions we make and our Faith will lead us right where are meant to be, with whoever we are meant to be there with. :)

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