On Love

by Managing Editor 777 | Commentary

On love, thoughts from this man.

Some words mean so much, carry so much emotion that they overwhelm us. Usually, these are words we cannot adequately define. Oh sure, we can look them up in dictionaries, but those definitions don’t do justice to the emotion evoked. One such word is love.

When we are in love, words often become stumbling blocks. We start to tell that special someone about our feelings and even the simplest words turn to tongue twisters, to feeble attempts to express the intensity of our emotions.

We may resort to gestures: flowers, candy, perhaps even lingerie or sexy accessories. We may get down on one knee and propose, usually a commitment called marriage but perhaps just to propose that that so special other person understands we are in—that word again—love with them.

How do we know we are in love? Perhaps it is the sense of preoccupation. That other person is always present in our mind: We dream of them; We want them near to us; We need to know that they are okay. Of course, such concern can take an unhealthy turn, one in which we must be in control, one in which that other person is not loved as separate from us but is felt to be part of us, to belong to us.

True love is preoccupied and protective, but it is not possessive. To love is to want the other to flourish, to individuate, to be the best they can. Even when those we love fail, we are not there to simply pick them up. No, we must help them to pick themselves up and go on. Their growth matters to us.

Those we love need to know that we can share their defeats and continue to love. They need to know that their failures and foibles do not push us away but allow us to better share with them. To love is to know that pain and tears can connect us because there is “no end to the tears of the heart.”

We must always remember that love is the language of possibility and of connection. Love defies time. We may not know what tomorrow will bring, but we have faith in true love that our relationship will endure.

Wishing you a loving relationship so true that it will last forever.