Thoughts on love

Love.  It’s something that deep down, we all want.  It is one of the basic human needs, the need to be loved.  But, more than that, we are looking to be in love, not just loved.  You see, there’s a difference.  And for those of us that understand that there is more to life than just the here and now – that this life is rather short – the desire to fall in love becomes one of the deepest desires and yearnings of our soul.  We all express it differently, for we are all different people, but deep down, that is what we really want – to be in love.

How many songs have been written about falling in love?  How many songs have been inspired by love?  And yet, it is something that often times seems so elusive.  Just that first step on the road to love can be so difficult.  As the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with just one step – but if that step is too hard to make, what then?  It seems like just finding someone that you are interested in who returns that interest is difficult enough.  There are so many people that we associate with every day; and yet, so few with whom there is that spark, that desire to learn more about them, to share with them life’s joys.  And when we do finally find someone where we feel that internal leap, so hard to capture with words yet so recognizable, how often do they feel it too?  How often do they see in us what we see in them?  How many times are we disappointed as they seem to see right through us?  How often do they seem to not even to notice?  Life goes on just as normal for them, yet we are left deflated and disappointed.  And after time, we are led to ask, “Can I really fall in love?” or “Am I capable of falling in love?”  We start to feel like our hope is hopeless, that we will never even have a chance to fall in love.

Then one day, it dos actually work out.  Just when we are to the point when we feel that we just can’t take it anymore, when we are ready to just give up, it happens – we meet someone else who catches our eye, and we seem to have catch theirs.  In the end, it doesn’t usually amount to anything – we pursue it and have fun while it lasts, but in the end, nothing comes of it.  Maybe we date for a while, but in time we decide that it isn’t going to come to anything so one or the other, or both, of us breaks it off.  And then we are back at the start, looking for someone who sparks an interest.  But it’s different.  Our hope that it is possible has been renewed.  It may take a little while, depending on how far we progressed the previous time and how it ended, but eventually we start looking again with the renewed hope that it is possible: that someday we will find someone with whom we can fall in love and share our life together, from now for the rest of eternity.  So we keep on looking, keeping on hoping, and keeping on loving in hopes that one day we will fall in love and have our “Happily Ever After.