Being in love is not a feeling, it is a choice. Yes, there are feelings that underlie it. Feelings without which love could never or would never have begun. And yes, if those feelings died forever, then the love itself can't endure.
But those feelings come and go. They are not love.
If you think that is what love is - merely the cheap and giddy throb and thrum and swell of emotion - well, congratulations on what is sure to be a life of grand, romantic tragedy. One sad love piled on top of the other. Filled with epic sweeps, great Loves, and never once one single mature love that is real or true. Always complaining: why can I not find lasting love, as others do?
I will tell you why: because love is not a feeling. If you think love is a feeling, then you have never felt it. You have felt infatuation. Infatuation can last a very long time. It can last years. But eventually, the feeling goes. And then the lovers despair, and they run in separate directions because their "love" has died. They curse love, and fate, they salt their pillows with tears because of their grief over the love that has died.
And yet, they never had love. They have no idea what love is. They think love is a feeling.
Feeling is not what truly makes love, or what keeps love true. When you love someone, if you ever do truly love someone, what you love is that person - body and soul, you love who they are, their qualities and quirks and virtues and foibles. Your love is for what is in them. Real love loves the person. Infatuation loves the feeling.
Love starts with that feeling, but then makes a choice: to honor that person, to stick it out with that person. The person who you love. Love is commitment with butterflies. But the foundation of respect is more important than the butterflies!
Now, I get the butterflies. I love the butterflies! And the butterflies go away, and when they do, I'm not worried in the slightest. Why not? I'm not worried because of what the sad, tragic, grand romantic never sticks around to learn: the butterflies come back. Many times, over the course of a love that does not die.
Love's moon waxes and wanes. The tide of our love withdraws, and comes roaring back, but our love is not the tide. Our love is the beach where we two meet. Our love is the coastline where we come together: ocean and continent. You wash over me and I dissolve into you. We love each other. We are honest with each other. We have faith. As the tide goes in and out, the shape of how we fit together changes, but even at our tide's lowest ebb I know you. You are the person I love. I love who you are. Not the role you play in my life. Not what you can do for me. Not some feeling that flits about my fluttering auricles and ventricles.
I love YOU.
And I am the one you love. Each of us loves the other, each of us loves the person. Since we each love who the other is, our love can not fail as long as we remain ourselves.
Oh, feelings change. Oh! They do. They grow, evolve, recede and resurge. It is no cause for despair, my love! We aren't juveniles who wake up one day wringing our hands, saying "oh! Catastrophe! I don't feel love today! To be true to myself and to you, my partner, I must break this off immediately by jumping ship to some cheap and delicious betrayal!"
I mean, shit. Grow up.
But those feelings come and go. They are not love.
If you think that is what love is - merely the cheap and giddy throb and thrum and swell of emotion - well, congratulations on what is sure to be a life of grand, romantic tragedy. One sad love piled on top of the other. Filled with epic sweeps, great Loves, and never once one single mature love that is real or true. Always complaining: why can I not find lasting love, as others do?
I will tell you why: because love is not a feeling. If you think love is a feeling, then you have never felt it. You have felt infatuation. Infatuation can last a very long time. It can last years. But eventually, the feeling goes. And then the lovers despair, and they run in separate directions because their "love" has died. They curse love, and fate, they salt their pillows with tears because of their grief over the love that has died.
And yet, they never had love. They have no idea what love is. They think love is a feeling.
Feeling is not what truly makes love, or what keeps love true. When you love someone, if you ever do truly love someone, what you love is that person - body and soul, you love who they are, their qualities and quirks and virtues and foibles. Your love is for what is in them. Real love loves the person. Infatuation loves the feeling.
Love starts with that feeling, but then makes a choice: to honor that person, to stick it out with that person. The person who you love. Love is commitment with butterflies. But the foundation of respect is more important than the butterflies!
Now, I get the butterflies. I love the butterflies! And the butterflies go away, and when they do, I'm not worried in the slightest. Why not? I'm not worried because of what the sad, tragic, grand romantic never sticks around to learn: the butterflies come back. Many times, over the course of a love that does not die.
Love's moon waxes and wanes. The tide of our love withdraws, and comes roaring back, but our love is not the tide. Our love is the beach where we two meet. Our love is the coastline where we come together: ocean and continent. You wash over me and I dissolve into you. We love each other. We are honest with each other. We have faith. As the tide goes in and out, the shape of how we fit together changes, but even at our tide's lowest ebb I know you. You are the person I love. I love who you are. Not the role you play in my life. Not what you can do for me. Not some feeling that flits about my fluttering auricles and ventricles.
I love YOU.
And I am the one you love. Each of us loves the other, each of us loves the person. Since we each love who the other is, our love can not fail as long as we remain ourselves.
Oh, feelings change. Oh! They do. They grow, evolve, recede and resurge. It is no cause for despair, my love! We aren't juveniles who wake up one day wringing our hands, saying "oh! Catastrophe! I don't feel love today! To be true to myself and to you, my partner, I must break this off immediately by jumping ship to some cheap and delicious betrayal!"
I mean, shit. Grow up.
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