We all have our ideas of what love is. We have heard about it; it was shown to us through stories, books, movies. The images and ideas of lovers fighting, even dying for their love are deeply entrenched in the media and entertainment world, and we happily consume them, dreaming of some of that in our lives. But the “real life” seems to exist in a different realm. People fall in love, sure. It is always a beautiful love story, and it burns away eventually, smoke choking and pain crushing lovers who only recently swore their undying love for each other. For some, it is exactly what love is supposed to be, a quick, hot flame of passion. For others, it’s just biology and has nothing to do with real love.
So, I don’t want to write about what love is. I guess it’s up to every single one of us to learn and grow into it. But I can be pretty certain of some things love isn’t. And maybe, somewhere between those, there is a deeper feeling of what it might be.
Love isn’t infatuation or admiration. It doesn’t blossom if you think yourself higher or lower than your partner. It simply won’t hold if you see the relationship as an opportunity to never have to make a decision in your life, because the possibility of making a mistake frightens you. In the same way, it hides away quickly if you think you “know better” than your partner. True love doesn’t know “higher” or “lower”, or even “better” or “worse”.
It also isn’t looking for someone to match all your shortcomings and flaws, so that nothing needs to be changed within you to make it work. Love isn’t meant to cement your ideas of who you are or be the glue that holds two broken minds together. It isn’t found in the “perfect match”, no matter how easy it feels and how smoothly it flows.
Love isn’t taking care of someone and lifting all the weight of their life, no matter how strong the impulse to do so is. It hides in the understanding that all of our steps, soft or hard, land on the pebbles that will unmistakenly lead us to the other shore. How could you truly love someone and take that away from them?
Love cannot be forced and isn’t something that should be asked for, or created by intent. It feels wrong to say it since we’re told so many times that it takes work and effort and dedication to “make it work”, but that’s scrambled rhetorics – in reality, nothing can “make it work”. It is already present and perfect, it only requires us to adjust the shape of our perceives selves, to un-mould ourselves back into the shape of love that binds our atoms together. Sometimes, rarely, it is possible to do it for someone else. Mostly though, we do it for ourselves first.
If it’s the right love with the right partner at the right time, that in itself will make lovers do what needs to be done to keep the gratitude and wonder alive. A tree doesn’t force the direction the branches need to grow any more than the branches control the leaves on it. Something much wiser and older takes care of all that.
Love isn’t impatient or anxious. It can wait because it’s not really waiting – knowing that ultimately everything leads back to It. Even when it knows it will never be manifested between two people, it sustains its intensity, as it doesn’t have any other choice than to simply Be.
It doesn’t change or wither away with rejection. It is as solid and tangible in the darkness of not-knowing as it is in a breath of loving embrace. Real love never utters the words like “love me back”; it simply keeps glowing, and the right soul is inevitably drawn to it when the time is right.
Love isn’t a cure for your loneliness. It is not a magic pill to fix all your problems, or yourself. It won’t let you rest for a long time and it will never forget your promises to your Self. It will blossom when you blossom, and hide when you are not being the best version of yourself. It never truly leaves you, but its warmth is fueled by your ability to feel the gratitude and see God in everything, including yourself and your lover.
Love isn’t measured in the amount of attention you give to the subject of your adoration, but by the amount of adoration you are able to receive from that person without doubting its pureness and innocence, radiating it back as naturally as the sun does.
Ultimately, love isn’t a force of attraction between two people. It truly flows only when there is no notion of “me” at all. When you merge with someone; when all your ideas of “self” dissipate and melt with a gaze or a touch, or even by proximity to him or her, only then can you know what Love is because you have experienced it. And you’ll know that the only way to describe is a shrug and a smile. Anything else will not do. Everything else is just notions and ideas, road signs only pointing in various directions, tricking you into a ride that is as futile as it is necessary.