Or so we're led to believe, aren't we? When you're growing up, love is a weird lesson to learn. Even as a small child, kissy faces, being told to tell people you love them (we even start this with babies learning to talk--"Do you love momma? Say I love you Momma!"). Then the movies, stories, television commercials, billboards... Love is advertised as everything and anything, the most ultimate prize and goal, the way things should be, with that special person, your soul mate...
As you get older? First crushes... teases and questions from family... more movies...
And let's not forget other factors... Eternal love and all that... Unconditional love... Unrequited love... So many kinds! It's like you go from the simple shit most of us experience (parental love, sibling love, etc...) to all these other loves... boyfriend or girlfriend... best friend... random acts... And so you filter these through your brain while others growing up around you (and not around you, the world over) get their definitions of "love" through their cultural examples and families and friends... Everything is tainted and rose-colored-lensed and culturally based and you run in to more and more differing types of people with differing backgrounds and different concepts...
And the whole while you are supposed to find your "perfect match," your "one and only."
The romantic in me loves (there's that word again) that notion... The realist in me scoffs at it. The jaded grumpy old man in me says "Pshaw! Get off my lawn!"
I am a firm believer in unconditional love. I think if you profess love, and dissect your feelings and find a person you may be compatible with, you take them, faults and all, to the end...
Or, at least, I used to. My defition has changed a bit after this last go 'round...
Not that I think you can't love unconditionally. But "love" is not "like," and "love" is not "love" if said love makes you unhappy... And I'm also not a proponent of happiness being a goal either--happiness isn't and shouldn't be anyone's goal, in my opinion. Contentment? With what you have? But being able to still desire the best you can have while content with what you already do possess? It's a mix of all that, sure...
But one thing is clearer to me now, something no one had ever told me until very recently... You can love someone and still not put up with behaviors and actions that are harmful to them and you--especially you. You can love someone and not have to live with someone. You can love someone? And sever all ties with them.
And that's okay.
And it's also okay to find love again, as long as you remember lessons of the past, while keeping hope for the future...
What is love? It's a complicated fucking ideal that is simultaneously unattainable and still realistic. It's scary and weird and childish, yet still one of the most adult choices you can make. It leaves you strong AND vulnerable, nervous AND confident, giddy AND somber...
And as I once again embark on a new chapter and journey, fear-filled, anxious, excited, vulnerable, and stronger? I once again ask myself "What is love?"
And my heart whispers back Baby, don't hurt me... don't hurt me no more...
