Thirteen

 What is love? 

According the Merriam-Webster, love is "a strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties." The basic level of love. 

Love varies.

There's family love, friendship love, and then there's to be in love. In the Bible, love is described for us. It gives us a detailed overview of what love is. 

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its on way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong doing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends." (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a)

So what does it mean? It means true love is someone who treats you with respect always. They aren't bitter to you. They don't talk down to you or make you feel lesser of a person. Love makes you better. It's an attachment, a desire outside of sexuality that honestly can not be truely explained. Being in love is finding the other part of you. Love isn't of the flesh, but of the mind and soul. It's like an addiction. 

Is it possible to be in love with the idea of being in love? Can you spend so much time dreaming of love that when you finally find it, it's a disappointment? Or is it a disappointment because it's not love? It's discouraging to think you've found love and it turn out to not be. It may be the reason why people seem to just settle. The fear that the love they're looking for doesn't exist overrides the desire for the dream, and the fear wins. People settle thinking they can adjust and sacrifice qualities of what they were looking for. These what if's of the situation. "What if I don't ever find love?" , "What if I passed love along the way?", What if it's too late to try?", "What if..?".

It's so bittersweet. It can make you feel like you're top of the world, but it can also drive you to the darkest corners of sorrow. It can keep you afloat, and at the same time, it can be what drowns you. 

Love.

It will make you or it will break you. 

(10-18-2011)