I’ve mentioned on several recent blog entries that I do a lot of thinking on my bike rides. I don’t know if it’s the fresh air, the physical exertion or just the freedom I feel while I’m peddling down a rural road in the warm sunshine, but I do some of my most creative thinking whilst on a bike ride. I often come up with blog entries that I never record. It’s time I do something about it.
One of the blog entries that I’ve formulated is this one, and it’s about love. Such a short little word with a big responsibility. Not to get all flower power but I believe that love is really what it’s all about and it’s not something that should be squandered away or ignored. Love should be celebrated. Love should be cherished. Love should be shared.
Growing up I felt a lot of love. I guess I was a happy kid because I felt loved and secure. My mother always told me that she loved me, my father never did. He didn’t need to. Grandma City told me she loved me, Grandma Country didn’t, she didn’t need to. Oh I knew that love was there, it’s just that it was an unspoken love. It didn’t diminish it in anyway and it’s not the way I play the game but that unspoken love wasn’t any less real, it was just conveyed differently.
There are so many different kinds of love. I’ve had three substantial relationships in my life. The first was a puppy love. We’ve all been there, you’re in love with being in love, and you’re going to love whether you really love or not. It makes sense when you’re 18. Looking back it makes you take pause but that’s o.k., it’s just part of our learning. It doesn’t make it any less real, but it’s just a little love.
I loved my second boyfriend as well, but it was more of a kinship type love. After a few beers I’ll declare that I love him to this day (though I don’t just bark it out randomly at people). We share a good friendship. Was it limitless? No. But was it good? Yes.
Now when I fell in love with Earl that’s when love knocked me off my feet. My love for Earl is honestly limitless. I still see fireworks when I see Earl, even all these years later. I love Earl in a way that I will never love another. My love for him is all encompassing. It has consumed every part of my soul and I know with all that I know that my love for him is never ending. I guess that’s easy for me to say as I don’t know what the future brings, but I’m certain that I will always love Earl. “‘Til death do us part.” Yep, it goes that deep. I’ve never felt that before.
Even with the undying love I have for Earl I do love other people. I’m not afraid to tell people that I love them if the emotion is true. This might make people take pause. Now I don’t go around telling everyone that I know that I love them, because that’s hardly the case. There are only a few that I could say that I love. It’s not the same kind of love I feel for Earl but it is love nonetheless. For example, I love our friend Steve in Buffalo and I have told him so. I love him like the brother I never had. We play games that only we get, like riding in the back seat of a car on a dark night telling each other cubby bear stories. It’s definitely a different kind of love. The closest comparison I can come to is a person that loves to paint but also loves to eat Chinese food. They don’t derive the same type of pleasure from painting that they derive from eating the Chinese food but they love both activities nonetheless. Both can coexist without compromising the other. The love of painting fulfills the painter in a myriad of ways and is all encompassing, the love of Chinese food goes beyond just satisfying them or fulfilling a need.
I wish I could write an analogy about how I feel about love. I’ve thought about saying, “I’d take a bullet for a person that I love” but then again, I think I’d take a bullet for just about anyone in danger, so that doesn’t really work. I guess I could say that it goes beyond caring. Perhaps it’s a special bond. Maybe we met in a previous life and here we are again. I just know it and I wish I could describe it.
I guess the point of my rambling is that love should be shared with those that we truly love, and those that we truly love should be cherished in their own special way. Save it, savor it, share it.
Great post, JP. (I’ll wait while you pick yourself up off the floor. yes, I’m actually posting a comment for the first time in forever. Ahh, the bliss of a peaceful Saturday morning at home.)
I have recently discussed this concept with a friend of mine. I told him I loved him very much and then worried about how he might take it, given we’re both married and happily so. But I agree with you 100%: I have true love for some people other than my husband, in a very different and unique way, and it is neither a threat or supplement to my marriage; it is a unique special bond and a feeling I have towards a select few who have become bonded to my heart in ways that go beyond conscious thought. The loves themselves are different (chines food to art, as you say) but each is no less real or special. Thanks for once again saying what’s on my mind better than I could have myself. I know we don’t see each other much, but man do I get geeked out-willies when I read many of the things you say and feel like we were separated at birth somehow. there is no doubt there are great differences, but there are clearly some really strong similarities as well.
Be well.
Sean
The way you describe your love for Earl and even the way you just speak about him on various posts always makes my heart skip a beat in the nicest possible way. I write posts similar about my other half Eiain and sometimes I am just so overwhelmed by how much I love him and I blog about it because I just feel the need to tell the world how special the love we have for each other is. I hope thats doesn’t sound really tacky and sickly but sometimes people can mistake what love actually is. There were many guys in my life that I thought I loved but I knew it wasn’t even close when I met Eiain. I love my whole family too but I also love my parents a great deal and that love is so strong because they are just truly decent people. They would also take a bullet for anyone as they could not bare to see any other person getting hurt. Sometimes it scares me how much I love these 3 people in my life. I know love shouldn’t be feared but thats how strong the emotion is. I guess its the fear of having it taken from you etc. Its just so nice to hear what you write as it makes me smile from ear to ear and I think to myself, I can totally understand what you are saying and I sit here with a big grin like a big kid thinking its so nice to hear of your happiness instead of all the doom and gloom you read on some blogs. You guys are truly a lovely couple and did I mention HOT TOO! 😉
I used to worry more about how to define what kind of love I might be feeling, but as I’ve matured, for me it seems anymore that love is in some ways all part of one big continuum, and yet unique in each relationship, hard to even compare in each instance, and even changing moment by moment.
Passion is something different, and while it can be deceptive and dangerous and downright disastrous; at the same time it pushes us to break those safe barriers we all build up around ourselves to find and get close to others in ways we might not otherwise want to try.
But passion or not, whatever way we find it, I think true love can only be gained over the long haul. And not just for lovers; but companions, friends, or any two people who know each other well enough to trust and forgive and feel safe and secure and free to share just about anything together.