The Truth about love – A Personal Reflection

Today I want to ask you all questions about love. What is a definition of love? How do you know why you love someone? How do you know when you are “in” love? How is that different than just loving someone? Google definition says that Love is “an intense feeling of deep affection.”  I have a couple questions about that. If love is a feeling, does it come and go, like sadness, happiness, anger? My second question is what exactly is affection? Google definition says Affection is “a gentle feeling of fondness or liking.” 

What is it about the person then that causes that gentle feeling of fondness or liking which based on the definition of love, intensifies to the point of love. There has to be a lot of factors I would think that would play into that.  The show love is blind is one of those shows that tries to unearth if it is possible to love someone without ever seeing them. I’m not sure of their total success rate but I doubt it is even 50%.

Again, I go to google to see what the factors are that make you love someone. “Factors that contribute to loving someone include shared values, mutual respect, kindness, strong communication, feeling comfortable being yourself around them, physical attraction, shared experiences, emotional intimacy, support, appreciation, and a sense of commitment to the relationship.” Ok wow that’s a mouthful and a lot to unpack for my question. So, there are 11 factors. Can you have 5 of the factors with someone and still love them? Do you need 10? If 1 is missing is that too much? Are some more important than others to have?

When someone asks you what you love about them, do you find it difficult to answer that question? I think I do because I think the feelings ebb and flow just as the factors at times ebb and flow.

Have you ever sat on the beach looking out into an ocean when the waves are bringing the tide in and out. In and out. In and out. In and out. It’s beautiful, the sound is amazingly peaceful like a lullaby for a baby. The air smells like salt and seaweed as the ocean roars over the rocks and sand and then pulls itself back as some of its mist glistens in the sky above it. It doesn’t ever stay still. It is ever changing. One wave is bigger than the next, one has more velocity, one wave is carrying seaweed, one wave is carrying seashells it will deposit on the shoreline. Some of the things the waves carry will stay on the shoreline, as the water retreats in a different pattern from when it came in. As it pulls back farther and farther to see, there are shells exposed on the beach, a lost sandal, a dead fish, small rocks that have weathered thousands of washes by the waves. Every time it is different but yet every time it is something that is expected, like the sun rising in the morning, a baby crying when it’s hungry, or a dog barking at a whistle in the wind. 

I think love and the factors that make you love someone are like the ocean waves.  They are consistent and never ending. Much like people who grieve for someone they love that they have lost for the rest of their lives. Some people even grieve a person that is still alive but has changed into a different version, just like the waves though, that version of their love exists forever.  They may love someone, but all the factors of love may no longer be there. The waves may have pulled back too far this time and left little shells of some of the factors of love, like the shared values, support, appreciation or the commitment.  These little shells that lay on the bare sand get exposed to the elements of the suns heated rays, the cold rain, and the stinky sandy foot that pushes them deeper into the sand. They are no longer in the consistent pattern with the waves.

I believe that sometimes the waves may never reach them again, they are buried too deep, maybe even taken home in a traveler’s suitcase. For some though that have laid through the harsh elements, maybe got stuck under some sand for a while to protect themselves, they will slowly start to emerge as the waves keep crashing.  Sometimes you may think the water could never reach them again. Sometimes it is too far, and they are lost far from the ocean forever. Sometimes though, there is a huge storm, and the waves are more powerful than they have ever been before. They are scary, they knock people off their feet, they rage, they boom, but this time they have pushed their limit so far that they have reached those little shells up by the path of the palm trees and they furiously grab them and pull them back in.

I don’t know if we ever know why the little shells do or ever get back into the ocean. Just like life, the circumstances change, sometimes the wind blows from the right direction, the humidity peaks and El Nino or whatever reason changes the pattern of how far the wave can reach.

Do you remember how I sometimes talk about picking up my confirmation bible and rocking it back and forth, feeling the brittle pages pass through my fingers and I pick a random bible verse when I am particularly unclear on what I need to do. Well, no matter how I kept trying to be different, I kept landing in Jeremiah. A few days later I had googled “The Thoughts I See” to check and see what happens when I google it. The fourth entry in the google list is Jeremiah 29:11. In translation it is “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and future.”

And just like that I realize that I don’t control the ocean current, I don’t know if the shells get picked up by a little girl in her sand pail and get carried further away, if the shells stay buried or if the shells go back into the waves and the ocean pattern.  I do know this though that wherever the shells are, they are where they are meant to be because I have faith that they are put to prosper me and not to harm me and they give me hope and future. This brings me peace.

Chat again soon,

Michelle