Sunday, December 05, 2004

All you need is love

As with most holidays, but especially Christmas, there is one prominent theme: Love. As the holidays have unfolded around me I have been immersed in songs of love, movies about love, gifts of love...and its a great thing. I remember back when there were times I could find reasons to be bitter when I watched a couple kiss on a side street or stare at each other adoringly, but it is pretty apparent this year that I have grown up. . I guess I realized that I was never really bitter about couples in love, in fact, I just wanted to be a part of what looked like such a sublime feeling. I think for a while there I had some shitty experiences with guys, because looking back on what I thought were wonderful amazing times with a certain guy....they were in actuality nothing compared to the short amount of time I spent with a certain guy in the most recent months. Its amazing how when you think you are so in love with someone and you can't imagine ever loving anyone as much as you love them....and then it happens, you amazingly fall into a love that was never even conceivable up until that point in time. Some of you know what I am talking about, others are yet to experience it. Maybe I am still yet to experience it. I don't know.


What I do know is that you can't be mad at love for very long. It's like that face that your friend or sister makes that no matter how mad you are at them, you have to laugh. I have learned to grow patient with regards to love. I remember thinking when I was younger, doing as lots of girls do....making my life estimates. I imagined I would be engaged at 24, married at 25, and have kids at 28. Its funny because so many of us do this and I'm not sure why. Maybe it gives us some sense of definiteness, like its in our plans so it has to happen. Well I'm 25 now and I am not even close to being engaged and that doesn't scare me at all. It use to. I use to think that I needed to get out there and start taking dating seriously, because I never really have. Then the other part of me would argue the "if its meant to be, then it will be" statement. Do I pursue love or do I live my life and let love run into me? I am still conflicted.

The thing is though that love isn't just about your soulmate. It's family, it's friends, it's really anything you want it to be. Those who don't feel fulfilled because they aren't dating someone right now should not lose sight of all the love that IS out there, right in front of you. For me, love has been a lot of things recently. Love was seeing the happiness in the faces of my family over Thanksgiving. Love was laughing so hard with my sisters that we cried. Love was my mom's office surprising her last weekend and coming over to the house to do the gardening that she loves, but has been to sick to do. Love is having friends that ask you how your day was...every single day. Love was the old man dancing with his wife in the street earlier this evening.

Maybe I am just more of a romantic than I already thought.

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