Love

When I was young I believed that real love didn't exist. I viewed love as selfish, manipulative, conniving, dishonest, abusive, destructive. I hated love. I hated affection. Love was something that people only had in the movies. Love wasn't real, and love was certainly not something I was going to experience.

I dated a decent amount of fellows desperately wanting to believe that love was real. Until Ace (nickname).

That whole "relationship" started out on a lie. He asked me to "go steady" (lol) with him and I told him I needed to pray about it. For a whole week I prayed, and I knew God was telling me no. I knew it wasn't something I was supposed to be in. At the end of the week, he called me for my response (doesn't this all sound so dramatic!?). He was so excited and I didn't have the heart to hurt him. So, to be nice, I said yes. I remember telling God that night that I was tired of being hurt and that I just wanted this one thing to work, and that I needed him to make it work. I literally told God that he "owed" me and that he needed to make this happen because I needed it.

Biggest mistake ever. That relationship was probably the most destructive I've ever been in. Not because of him, or really because of me, but simply because of circumstance. Despite the fact that I knew God was saying no, I literally fell hard for Ace. My heart was wholly his. Nevermind that our personalities were just completely inappropriately matched. This relationship failure was not for lack of trying. Ace loved me. Ace really loved me. And I really loved him. And we tried. We tried with every fiber of both of our beings and in the end, we both ended up messed up, confused, and broken. I learned then that it didn't matter how hard I tried, sometimes two good people just don't belong together.

After that break up, I launched myself into three years of playing with men. I was a tease. I was bored. I was angry. I was hurt. Guys were just a tool to feel better about myself.

On some random day in January, my whole world changed. I met this person, on the phone, who literally rocked my core. I met this person who sassed back at me, who teased back at me, who wasn't intimidated by me. I met this person who fought back at what I dished out. I met this person who completely mesmerized me. I fell in love. It was instantaneous. There was no arguing with it either. I was completely a lost cause. I had no idea what this chap looked like. I knew nothing about him at all, except that he was in the Army. I went to dinner that night and told my friends that I met the man I was going to marry. They laughed at me. Mind you, this laughter was deserved, since I had a "new guy" every week and they knew me only to be incredibly fickle, however, I still knew I was going to marry this dude.

All of a sudden, love became something completely different. All of a sudden, love became terrifying. It wasn't  hard. It was easy. Too easy. We never fought or argued. We agreed about everything. Not in a superficial, but in a completely literal way. We thought alike. We believed alike. We viewed the world the same way. It was amazing. I couldn't wrap my brain around the possibility of real love being so easy. So I ran.

I took off and tried on a love that was "hard" because I guess my screwed up brain needed to be completely convinced that "hard love" wasn't real love. Well, it isn't. Love isn't hard. At least not the way so many people like to make it seem. Love isn't endless compromising, or fighting, or changing, or morphing, or sacrificing. Love isn't giving everything up, or bending over backwards over and over again. Love isn't generous. Love is completely selfish. But in a beautiful way.

It is selfish for me to love him. I LOVE loving him! It is selfish for me to do the things that make him smile, because I LOVE making him smile. I don't change myself to fit his "status quo". I am my complete self. He loves my complete self. He loves my flaws, my insanities, my silliness, my seriousness, my emotional basketcaseness, my worrying side, my angry side, my comforting side. He knows every facet of my self and he loves me anyway. THAT is what love is. Love is loving someone, accepting someone, completely as they are. Not as you want them to be, pretend that they are (or they pretend to be), or you imagine you both could be together.

I have seen so many people commit themselves to love being hard. I have seen this (and done it myself) because of a complete fear of being alone. I think we all have an aspect in ourselves that says "I'd rather have a difficult 'love' than no love". I think this is a lie that evil feeds us. Difficult love isn't love. It's infatuation, desperation, anxiety, and maybe a lot of other words, but it isn't love. Real love sets you free and finding it is a complete and utter miracle.