Love. That word gets thrown around so much these days.
What does the word love really mean? This is a question I have had to ask myself repeatedly over the last 6 months, and I’ll probably continue to redefine it my entire life.
When I was a child love wasn’t something complicated- if I liked something, I probably felt that I loved it. When our emotions are immature, as they are when we are young, they don’t accumulate layers that need to be sorted through. You either love it, or you don’t. Plain and simple.
As I grew and observed all the different relationships around me I began to realize that love wasn’t not such a simple thing. I don’t remember the first time I watched my parents fight or the first time I realized that my dad was hurting my mum. But I think that at some point in my very young life I began to realize that sometimes loving
someone meant that you hurt yourself.
In my pre-teen years I learned about different kinds of love, familial love, friendship love, and I discovered what I thought was “romantic” love…as romantic as that can be when you’re 9…Then at 10 everything stopped. Everything I thought I knew became different. For me that was the year that the blinders came off. Well, they didn’t just come off they were ripped off. It was the beginning of the end of parent’s marriage and things would never be he same. A few weeks ago I drove past the police station they took us too when my Dad was arrested for driving under the influence. I hadn’t seen it since that night. I couldn’t have even described it to you. But when I saw it I knew every nook and cranny. That place was the catalyst to my adulthood.
I do remember watching parent’s arguments in those last 3 years of their marriage. I remember my father- unwilling to admit that his addiction was ruining his life and my mother, begging him to love us enough to try. I remember realizing at about 12 years old that my Dad actually did have a problem. And it was then that I began to learn another side of love.
The side where you sometimes have to choose.
It was either sink or swim. Stay with my Dad and everyone would sink because he couldn’t see past his own hurt enough to see ours. Or, pick up the pieces of what was left and swim with my Mum. I choose the later, even though it ripped my heart out. And later on when I had to make the choice to stop seeing my dad, I followed through with the lesson of loving something enough to let it go, and loving myself enough to know that that was okay.
Love wasn’t so simple anymore. It wasn’t cut and dry. The fun was kind of sucked out of it and I began to experience love only in a survival mode. I didn’t have boyfriends in Junior High or High School. Because I didn’t have time for that kind of love. That kind of love was rebellious, exciting, provocative, and experimental. I didn’t have time for any of those things. I think I thought that if that kind of love, lead to my parents kind of love, then I didn’t want it. So I grew up only understanding familial love and friendship love. I was really good at that. I think I still am. And I began to experience it in a Spiritual way.
As I graduated from high school and things calmed down in my personal life I became a little bit wild. I drank a lot and partied all the time and hung out with a “not-so-good” crowd. I was experimenting with all kinds of stuff and hanging out with all kinds of people and I really wasn’t thinking about any kind of love. Not even familial love, I was just making up for lost time- or so I thought. It’s interesting that amidst all that blackness I still didn’t ever take the chance on having a relationship with somebody. I always told myself it was because of the way I looked, or acted, but I know now that I was being protected and that I was also protecting myself. I didn’t want to end up like my parents. But I wanted to have a good time. I was headed down a pretty scary road. I was getting myself into a lot of trouble. And it wasn’t till years later that I realized that the thing that saved me from that black hole was the spiritual love that I had only scratched the surface of.
A few years later my Dad got sick. I watched as my Mum swallowed her feelings of anger and visited him in the hospital even before I did. And she tried to take care of him- even right down to putting Vaseline on his dry lips. This man who had mistreated her, left her, hurt her children. She had found it in her heart to forgive him- and not only that but she was able to show love as well.
And I forgave him. Because he asked me to. And he cried because he had missed me and I had grown up without him and he ached because he knew what he had done.
And he forgave me. For leaving and being to scared to come back.
And then he passed away.
And my heart ached because the father I had always wanted and desperately needed had finally shown his face but now- he was gone for good. I didn’t have a choice. I had to let him go.
So now I’m 23. And what does love mean to me now…sometimes I don’t think there are words. I know there are different kinds of love. I know that love is not simple. It will never be as simple as it was when we were children.
I know that love in a friendship means be willing to be there when the chips are down. Being willing to put up with someone being crazy for a little while. I know there is give and take.
I know that familial love means that it is never too late to say you’re sorry if you mean it. That parents are people and make mistakes. That we are all human and just because we share blood doesn’t mean that we have to be perfect and get along all the time. I also know that you can feel familial love with people who aren’t even part of your original family. I think the only way I could some of my friend’s kids more is if they were my own- and sometimes I take responsibility for them as if they were because I love them so much. They are also my family.
I know that spiritual love mean having the unconditional love of God and not being afraid to show it. I know that through Him all things are possible and without Him it’s that much harder to get to where you need to go.
And romantic love. I know that romantic love is all of these things put together. I know that it is not perfect. That sometimes it’s hard and sometimes you break up and sometimes you hurt your partner and sometimes they hurt you. But I know that loving someone means loving them in their whole person. Meaning you take their faults and their beauty and combine it with your to create this space of silent splendour. It will always be hard. There will always be challenges. But loving somebody means that you are willing to do anything you can to work things out. It is never a mistake to love someone and it’s important that you are both bringing your best selves into the relationship and that you are WILLING to work for it. Being in love shouldn’t “complete” you. It should bring together 2 people who want to take their lives and their definition of love to a new level.
And I’m terrified of it. But I’m terrified to live my whole life not knowing what it means to put what I’ve learned into practise.
It’s taken me a long time to figure out what love looks like. And I think that definition will continue to morph and change throughout the rest of my life. But I’m not afraid of it in the same sense that I once was.
I am so greatful for all the love I have in my life. And if I’m blessed to take that love to a new level, then I’ll be greatful. Either way I’m not afraid anymore. I’m finally at that place where love doesn’t just mean one thing. And I thank God for that.
