In Pursuit of Love: Part Three

It seems this series will continue as I recognize my own faults and success with understanding love beyond a forever.

"We must be our own before we can be another’s."~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

In Pursuit of Love Part 3

I have focused on the word love and its meaning. Expressed how love can show itself in many forms and not all love is accepted by society. What I haven’t done it discussed it clear from my heart. It was brought to my attention that I run from love, afraid of the happily ever after. I believe that is one profound true statement. It got me to think deeper on my affliction with love. Hopefully with this series I can find out what love really means to me and how I can learn to let it in.

As a child, love was not a word that we spoke of in the home. In fact, I only said it to my father as an adult when he was going in for open heart surgery. I have no recollection of speaking the word to any human before then. I may have said it in passing but never said it where I felt butterflies, calmness, warmth or any overwhelming feeling. I was blind to love and honestly, I don’t think I even knew what it meant beyond really liking something. I had a lot to learn and I am just figuring it out now. After, many failed relationships I am putting myself on blast that I have no idea what love is. Now don’t’ get me wrong, I love my kids dearly and would do anything for them. No matter what happens, fights we have or things they do wrong my love for them never ever stops. To me that is a form of unconditional love that I felt them moment each one of them was born. That is not the same love that you have when you meet your partner and vow to be together forever.

Forever…. To me that word goes in sync with Love. Because, I believe in order to really love it means you will love forever. I am learning otherwise as I go through life and its roller coaster of emotions. Love is not always forever, love is sometimes temporary, short-lived or even damaged to the point it dies. Love does not have to be permanent or forever, even if we don’t understand why. I just read an article in Psychology Today about relationships and love, here is the link (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/relationships). It was very interesting to me because it stated how we learn to develop relationships as early as infancy. That can explain why some of us truly don’t grasp the idea of love and stable healthy relationships. We just were never shown one and we are learning as we go by trial and error.

Learning about love has taught me many lessons on what not to do and what to do more of. I have learned how healthy relationships are formed and how unhealthy, toxic traits can ruin any relationship. Within each relationship is love in its many forms. Love is not always the answer to maintaining a relationship. I have loved and truly thought that was it, the one true love forever and I was dead wrong. My love was broken, damaged and faded away. Now we get the part of me fearing love. I am terrified of loving and it is not forever. Now I must ask myself if love needs to be forever or does a healthy love create a forever? Can you just embrace the love you have and go with it instead of trying to give it a timeline? I am piecing together all my knowledge, failures, lessons, hurt and suffering to see the real meaning of love.

Love does come in many forms and instead of trying to only find the one that lasts forever, maybe I should learn to embrace the love I am currently facing. Love for love, because they bring me that feeling that makes me love them. Stop trying to figure out if it will last forever. When you search for forever, you may just be sabotaging your forever. I was in such a hurry to make forever happen. I lost the importance of the present. My love wasn’t enough, his love for me wasn’t proof it would be forever, because I lost sight of what it meant to love. While we have moved on from each other, I wonder how much of my own distorted views on love created the downfall of our relationship. He always told me the moments we had in our relationship were part of our love story and instead of seeing them as journeys, ups and downs, I saw them as an ending. I took love and ended it because of my own close-minded way of thinking. Yet, to this day I still have love in my heart for him. Love is a journey and love can develop in many forms, levels and in various relationships. So, embrace the love you feel now and rejoice in it, share it, be humble with its familiar feeling.