Experiencing Love for the First Time
I believe love is a many-splendored thing.
I have always chased the experience of love, that feeling you get when you are held, cradled even. It’s so comforting. It reminds me of the touch of a mother — just so peaceful.
It’s truly a beautiful experience.
Over my many lives of existence, I have experienced many things that I thought were love. For those yearning for love, or are currently in love and confused about what real love looks like, let me tell you what love is not.
№1: Love is not lust.
Sex is a very different beast than love.
I used to think that the only thing I could ever offer a partner was my body. I wasn’t very cool-tempered, and I didn’t have many accomplishments under my belt. I made mistakes and I cried too often, and I didn’t cry enough. Sometimes, I didn’t even feel. I shut people out.
Instead of investing in my personal growth, my self-improvement as a woman, I chose to spend. So much spending. I gave so much of myself away to anyone that made me feel loved.
Obviously, I didn’t love myself.
Love is not lust. Lust is sexual attraction, arousal, and activity for and with another being. Healthy, consensual sex is a small part of a healthy, consensual relationship between two people — it is not representative of the love between two people.
Instead, sex is an intimate act of physical unity that signifies the desire to connect with another person on a deeper level. Beautiful sex transcends us to a different universe, something that should not be taken lightly.
It doesn’t have to be super serious or even that lasting, but sex does have to consensual. Without consent, sex becomes unhealthy. Non-consensual sex most certainly isn’t love.
Takeaway: Love is not lust. Sex is not love. Sex is part of a loving relationship, but does not equate to love itself.
№2: Love is not jealous.
Yesterday, I felt my first pang of jealousy in my relationship with my boyfriend. I felt threatened by another woman, a woman who did nothing wrong at all and involved zero inappropriate interaction on his end. I felt threatened by her quiet confidence, sureness of herself, achievements, professional success, organization, and general levelheadedness.
Everything that I viewed myself as not.
I told myself yesterday that I was experiencing jealousy because I loved my boyfriend, that because I was jealous, I was justified.
That it signified that I in fact did truly love him.
Let me tell you something important: Love is not jealous.
I was feeling jealous because I am insecure with my lacking of certain qualities in my character. I admire that woman for her strengths and that snowballed into envy in this particular situation. Envy ruins relationships, by the way. We idolize the grass on the other side. We think everything is greener, prettier, healthier, riper for fruition.
In reality, our soil is just as fertile.
It isn’t about whether my boyfriend reciprocated anything in return, or if she actually transgressed in the first place. All I have are the facts — that I am equally as worthy, even though my strengths are different, that I am enough. I don’t need my boyfriend’s, or anyone else for that matter, validation to know that I am enough. I am worthy and whole with all of my flaws, all of my lacking.
I am perfectly imperfect as I am.
Takeaway: Love is not jealous.
True love is full of faith. Jealousy is everything but having faith. Jealousy is an emotion that we feel often when we love and care for someone deeply, an emotion that reveals more about ourselves than anything else. Jealousy is not a byproduct or part of love at all.
№3: Love is not fearful.
When life gives you lemons, you… run away? No!
You make lemonade or some shit.
You do anything. You take action. You know what happens when you don’t take action and you should? You lose out on love. You give up on love.
“If you do not feed your love, it will die.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
Love is like a flower. You must water it, give it sunlight, take care of it. Even when love is scary and trying to love yourself while loving someone else, while someone else willingly loves you, is scary. It is foreign, backwards.
That is only because we have been trained to feel like it is backwards. Love has nothing to do with fear. Love just is.
I can say that I know what it feels like to have love, to lose love, to ruin love because of fear. Don’t make that same mistake. Love is beautiful and pure, and does not deserve to be raped and defiled by the atrocities of the mind.
Takeaway: Being scared to love ruins love. Experiencing love and loving someone back is a fearless act, a selfless act.
Love is beautiful.
My partner told me that we are so fortunate, that not many people get to experience love the way we do. The way we feel about each other. The problem with love is that it is hard to maintain because of human imperfection. Love itself is abundant and free-flowing. Love plus baggage plus life plus personal growth? A recipe for… difficulty.
Notice how I did not say disaster?
I can fully attest to this when I say that real love is marked by how you get through the hard times together. How you experience adversity together, if you continuously feed love to nourish and grow, despite the bad times. Love is the intricate, interwoven fabric of life that God has so graciously allowed us to feel. Taking love for granted, as I have done many times, is a recipe for disaster — a life of sadness and regret.
The takeaway? Choose love.
Love is always simpler, more beautiful, more fun, more fulfilling. Choose love. Act from a place of love. Love heals.
