It's a funny thing; Love. It can make us feel a whole spectrum of emotions: blissful, depressed, fulfilled, infuriated, frustrated, hopeful, and sometimes a little insane. But love isn't really an emotion or a feeling. Love is a choice. It's a blatant act. It's not something you do subconsciously or by accident. However, I didn't always view love like this.
I've been "in love," truly, once in my life. It was a mad, passionate kind of love. Something I can equate only to the kind of stories you come across in Nicholas Sparks books. And that's saying something coming from someone who is normally an absolute realist when it comes to matters of the heart. It was powerful almost to the point of recklessness. It made me do and feel and say things that were so foreign to me. It molded me into a person I had never been and never thought I would ever be. I became a starry-eyed, lovey-dovey, fairytale-believing, let's-grow-old-together hopeless romantic.
There's a point to this story, I promise. The point is, throughout the duration of this mad, passionate love, I thought that it was involuntary, that I didn't have any other choice but to love that uncontrollably. I didn't have a choice. That was my defense. For two years, I argued that it was something beyond my control. But then reality was finally able to penetrate the dream-like delusion that was my present cognition. Once it sunk in, I was aware of just how deep in denial I had been.
I had made the decision to love so uninhibitedly. It didn't feel like something I had done consciously, mostly because I hadn't realized I had the capacity to do so. But I had done it. And I haven't been able to do it again since.
In life, we have experiences that alter our definition of love. This was my game changer. A love like that changes everything. It thrills you, electrifies you, exhausts you, and eventually refines you. In that order. At least, that was true for me. I believe that all love should be that deep. But knowing what I know now, I no longer believe that love is this magical thing that materializes out of thin air. In grammatical terms, it's a verb. It may feel like something fantastical and other worldly while you're in the midst of a great love. And that's fine. But the thing that I was forgetting in my experience, the thing that we all often forget, is that we have a choice to love or not.
Lately, I feel as though I have been receiving an overwhelming abundance of active love from the people surrounding me. It's almost a tangible kind of thing. I feel as though I could swell and burst from the amount of love that I have been given. My family, my friends, and sometimes even perfect strangers have shown me such kindness and genuine concern that I must owe them something in return.
That's when I realize that what I owe them is the same kind of love they have shown me, only amplified. And I don't know that I have been doing that. I don't think that I can stand firm and honestly say that I have been giving anyone in my life the love they deserve. I have not been consciously, actively, purposefully loving anyone at all. Not the way I should, anyway.
I tell people I love that I love them, but not often enough and certainly not as often as I used to. It's become something that's difficult for me to admit, particularly when I truly mean it. So I have to force myself to say it when I need to, but it shouldn't be something so painstaking.
I have a problem with expressing my love for people. I'm not often affectionate for reasons that require their own separate novel. I show love in unconventional ways that I can only imagine are quite difficult to decode.
Regardless, love should be given where love is due. It is overdue by years and months and incalculable volumes to the individuals in my life. I can't promise that I'm going to be able to give them everything that they have given me, plus the interest that I so obviously owe. But I can promise that I will do everything in my power to actively love them to the best of my ability. I promise to love them as much as my little heart can manage.
It is impossible to deny that I have been blessed beyond measure with the abounding love that has filled my life and my heart recently. Now, I just need to allow that love to move me. Undoubtedly, I feel the utmost gratitude to those who have indeed loved me so deliberately. I can only thank them a thousand times over for loving me even though I am so undeserving. One of these days, and hopefully very soon, I will be able to repay them for the great love they have chosen to show me.
Love is a choice, whether we believe it or not. I believe that now. I choose to love and love on purpose.
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