Wednesday, August 11, 2010

What does love mean to you?

The concept behind the word love has always been strange to me. Someone recently said that they thought the definition of the word love was “You love someone if you would die for them”. Honestly, other than my daughter (without thought) and possibly my mother and grandmother, I have never felt that deeply for anyone. Ever.


Wait, with out thinking, I would probably in a quick situation die for any child in harms way. So what does that say? I wouldn’t die for my own friends, most of my family, any boyfriend or ex husband (I have only had one ex husband) that I have ever had, but I would die for a stranger’s child if I thought they were in danger and I could step in and save them. Wow, that really makes me think about who I am. My friends and family may want to re-think hanging out with me. Geesh.

Growing up, I was never really shown love by anyone except my grandmother. As an adult, I have realized that my mother loves me unconditionally but when I was a child, she didn’t know how to show me since she was a child herself. My father loves me to the best of his ability now too, but there were strings attached to his love when I was a child. In fact, the first time he ever told me that he loved me was when I was 30 and he and my mom were divorcing.

The first time that I experienced real, heart wrenching, unconditional love was when I saw my daughter for the first time. It was only then that I knew what love really was and how deep it can affect me.

Sure, I have thought I was in love hundreds of times (I exaggerate) but unfortunately I have realized that it was just lust and it went away quickly as did I. In the past for me, love was attention. If someone gave me attention and I liked it, I thought it was love. I like to hear the word even if it had no meaning behind it. I would even coax it out of people just to get that rush. Cause we all know that if someone says it, they have to mean it. Duh!

I love things about people. Like my BFF is always there for me even when it is something that she should slap me for and then drive me to the nearest institution. I love how comfortable she is with herself and her ability to always make me feel ok. I love all of the things that a blogger friend of mine helps me open my eyes to about reality. So I do “love” but not in the real sense of the word.

This is my next “change” that I want to make in my conquest for overall health. I want to learn what the true meaning and feeling of love is.

My first step, LOVE ME!!!!

22 comments:

  1. I don't know that I can articulate what it is well enough. I do know that at my worst and when I had done my worst, a man who has born the best and the brunt of me, asked me gently, if I was okay and he kept asking me, if I was okay. I don't know what paradigm or even dimension you can completely define love in, but I do know that in that moment, I felt loved.

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  2. "The love you give away is the only love you keep"

    I can't remember where I saw that quote but it resonated with me. I know what love is and I have loved freely, openly and deeply but dont think I have ever BEEN loved back - except by my kids.

    Well, ya know what they say, "Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all."

    I know you will get there. :)

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  3. Why do people always have to use dying as the test, i.e. "do you love them enough to die for them?" I'd certainly jump in front of a guy with a gun who was going to hurt my kids.

    My wife? Ummm . . . yeah, probably. [No, I did NOT hesitate . . . stop that! :-) ]

    Other family? Well . . . which ones? Is the gun pointed RIGHT at them, or is he just kind of waving it around, talking crazy?

    Friends? I don't think so. A lot of them are on the fleshy side, anyhow, so I think they could take a bullet and survive ok. I'll make them baked goods, while they recover.

    If you're collecting nice quotes on it, I like Oscar Wilde's . . . "Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead."

    Then again, this is the same man who wrote that "Women are made to be loved, not understood." ;-)

    XO

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  4. This is the second post I've read recently about what love means. My own thoughts on the subject will be posted tomorrow.

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  5. Everything you say makes sense here and it sounds like you have a handle on it. But I know that’s not a easy thing to do… this love thang that is… well it’s a very complicated things. I believe that there might even be levels of love in the scope of things. I mean you can love something or someone but not be in love with them. So it’s ok to love but its so much different being in love. I also think the time phases in this are different. I think you can love someone or something in a second but to be in love with them takes a very long time. There is so much that goes into that being in love thing… trust, friendship, want and then need.
    You are right before we can be in love we must love yourself and if we don’t all we can do is love, not be in love.

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  6. OKay to be real. I would die for most anyone that meant anything to me. If they were in trouble and I could step in and be the martyr... then I bet I would... if my coward didn't show up. Anyway, what I'm saying is... I'd want to die for them, take their place, if I could.

    But love it IS conditional because we ARE human. We attach things to everything we say and we can easily change the way we feel by a few words or actions.

    Love for me is time. Like and lust grow into love. It's nurtured. And it's service. And it's work. And it also takes two people. I can love this or love that... but the love I think YOU are talking about has no time and takes two people--willing to work on it and nurture it and take care of it together through all the joy and through the inevitable pain that just comes with life--that love doesn't ever even think about being given up on, it's not even an option because without that love holding you two together one feels they just simply could not exist.

    The end.

    :)

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  7. Was that too much?

    Or should I just say I don't believe "real love" exist?

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  8. I used to think love for a child was deeper then love for a partner. When my first child was born I thought I had never felt a love like it. However, when my ex-wife almost died during the birth of our second child. That was scary and, I did realise then, that I did love her as much as the kids. However, that love was different.

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  9. Yes, I agree with Jim. Die for someone? And that means love? Hmmm....

    I do believe that love is undefinable. It is nothing that can be expressed with words. It is feeling, pure and simple.

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  10. Sounds like a good first step to me!

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  11. I know I am capable of great love. I have shown it and I have had it given to me but sinc our paths differ we can't be together. But love is still there....

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  12. To me love is giving someone the ability to be themselves. To allow their happiness, with no strings attached to your own. To not ask them to give up their dreams, but instead nurture and strengthen their abilities to achieve them. To fully embrace them, including their flaws, and to do whatever you can to help them on their journey in growing to be the best person they can possibly be.

    Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
    1 Corinthians 13:4-7

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  13. Excellent topic! I sometimes wonder if I even know what love is myself. I know that I love my children with all that I am, however since my marriage ended, I question if I am capable of loving another man/lover again.

    *Hugs*
    kitten

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  14. I agree with Kitten... And I thought the same thing when I got divorced. Now, almost 2 years later, I say "bring it," LOL.
    Love is a sticky subject... I often wonder, if you can chose to love someone, even if you don't feel the rush of being "in love?" I think that when we feel like we are in love, that feeling fades or dies out, then one person bails out to go find that new "rush" again, but a relationship 2 people work on together and chose to make work, may eventually turn out to be the "lasting love" that surpases all.
    And I agree that you need to start loving YOU! Then you can love someone:)

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  15. sounds like you are on the right track..I love..and I loved.. but once my heart was destroyed I wonder if I will love like that again...

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  16. @Mindy...I think that was a quote from 'Ghost.' Love it!

    And Danielle, love means something different for everyone. I do know that in order to receive it, we have to be open to it. We have to accept that the love we receive may not be exactly the way we imagine it, but that the person giving it may be loving us the best he/she can. And we have to love them back the best we can, too.

    The best loves are unconditional. They are also the hardest to maintain, the most challenging for everyone involved, and the scariest for those of us who have been burned before.

    You'll get there. Baby steps, gurl.

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  17. love, a truly foreign concept to me...

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  18. There's romantic love, and there's unconditional love. The first comes with all sorts of attachments and expectations. The second is given away freely. And the second is what connects us all. Connect with everyone through a compassionate heart, and you'll always have love.

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  19. I think you and I both have a touch of Aspergers...seriously. Read Jodi Piccoult's new book and see if you don't really connect with the main character....like on a scary level.

    I read your post and it's like you've gone into my head, plucked the words and thoughts out and put them on paper...screen...whatever. It's kind of freaky.

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  20. I think VK is on it.

    Now for me I love love. I love the thought of love! Love is lovely. Love can build a bridge!

    When I wake up in the morning I ask my self, I say Sage (thats what I call myself, Sage) Sage would you like some breakfast? Then I answer No I want love. It will fill me up!

    If I could make a love sammich I would and eat it all, a foot long even it would fill my tum tum!

    All you need is love! Thats all you need.

    Whats love got to do with it? I'll tell you what, everything. Thats what. I do love me some lovely love!
    lovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelove!

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  21. Love, to me means you wanting to place anothers needs/wants ahead of your own, regardless if it is reciprocated or not. Most people need to see/feel that in another person in order to feel loved.

    You can't make somebody place your needs ahead of their own. You can however place your own needs first, love yourself, then you don't need it from another.

    Love is way to demanding for most, stick with loveing yourself and lusting others, life will be much easier, happier and a hell of lot less disappointing.

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  22. It seems funny to quote this movie, but there's a line in Lars and the Real Girl that I think nails perfectly what love is. Love is when you want to do right by someone.

    For me, that's it. Wanting to be your best YOU and do right by the person you adore.

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