As a teenager, I used the word love to describe how I felt about a member of the opposite sex with whom I was in a relationship. Saying the word came quickly, and I used it often to get a desired response from the recipient. Being in love was an objective you were supposed to achieve. I “fell in love with” and married a girl when I was twenty. We had a daughter a year later. Suddenly, I realized that love was so much more than the emotional excitement that I had defined it as for so many years. We were married for about five years when I “fell in love with” another woman. I was twenty-five, and she was thirty-four. I got a divorce and began dating the other woman.
Over the next forty-three years, I learned what love is. I knew that it was more than physical desire. I learned that true love means being committed to the other person and the relationship. I learned that true love means recognizing and accepting that the other person has faults and imperfections and that you won’t always see eye to eye. I knew true love is about compromise and not always a 50-50 situation. I learned that true love is about sleeping on a cot in a hospice room as your wife lies dying beside you and being more concerned about her comfort than your own. Finally, I learned that true love is not praying for her to stay when you know deep in your heart that it’s time for her to go.
I believe the word love has become a cliché, and we use it too cavalierly. Today we “love what you’ve done with the place,” we “love how that dress looks on you,” and we “love our car, our house, our boat, etc.”
We use the term love as a synonym for appreciation. I used to be that person too. No more! It may have taken me well into my fifties to understand what being in love with someone meant and involved, but I was a good student and learned well. I may have lost the “love of my life” after forty-three years, but everything I knew about true love allowed me to welcome it again when I met a fantastic woman after a year as a widower.
If finding the love of your life is your vision, but you feel stuck or guilty about even thinking about it, let’s chat. Sign up for a complimentary consultation on my website: https://www.TransformationalWellnessServices.com by clicking on contact, and then schedule a session with Rich. I will help you identify the things holding you back and
offer you some ways to help you move forward.