Whatever way I look at it there are more questions than answers when it comes to Love.
"I love you", those three little words we wait to hear that mean so much to any burgeoning relationship. But then as the years pass they can become almost a
throwaway comment, a goodbye, a silence filler. Why do these three words hold so much weight?
What is love? What does it mean to be 'in love'? Is it different for different people? Well individuals by their nature are different so it follows that no two people's experiences are exactly the same, right? And no matter what you hear or what you are told you never truly know what went on between two people. So can we ever really explain how our Love experience feels?
They say you never feel the same love twice. But who are they? How do they know?
What we do know is that Love changes people, it makes them happier, more relaxed, free but gone wrong can also make them crazy, insecure and paranoid. It is something so deeply personal to tell someone how you feel and lay your soul bare that people can err a lil on the crazy spectrum with rejection, betrayal or deception.
My belief is that true love stays right where you felt it; time is only yesterday's faded calendars after all. The passing of years insignificant to the feelings and emotion that sparked between two souls. A simple song can transport you back to a time and place you experienced love and the warm salty tears fall for the loss of what you once held so dear. You are suddenly back in that moment. Fully! Marty McFly has nothing on us ladies. Time travel is absolutely possible when it comes to your emotions.
Sometimes we live in the past and the hopeful future more than the present. As you read this article you are probably thinking about a past or potential lover. Are we too caught up in the past and future to even enjoy the present?
Is your soulmate the one you ultimately spend your life with or is he or she the one you think of, have that connection with even when separated by miles and time? Hopefully these are one in the same person but that's not always the case. So which one is your true love? How can we know unless we return to the burning question, what really is love?
Is it what we see in the movies? The grand gestures and fireworks. But we never actually see the happy ever after part, do we? And if we do it's a few kodak moments with people smiling for the camera. But the camera does lie and surely can't capture the complexity of this thing we call Love.
I wonder is love in reality simply too mundane to make a movie about? Are our normal daily routines actually what love is all about and movies just a fantasy we should not even attempt to draw parallels with? A friend once told me that you live your life everyday with another person and if on a day to day basis you get on, then one day you will look back and that will be a life full of happy memories (yes this from a man). This doesn't sound nearly flowery and romantic enough for me. So are the rest of us over-thinking it? Are we thinking on a macro level when we should be thinking micro? When you fall into a hug and it feels like home; the cozy familiar of dvd and takeaway night; when your guy makes you want to be a better person, makes you want to try harder, live better, have goals - is this love?
Do Hollywood scriptwriters really have an insight into what Love is anyway or are they too hoping it's a real whimsical magical thing? Hoping against hope that love really does conquer all? That it does in fact last a lifetime. That fate does bring two souls together. But most Hollywood marriages seem to last the blink of an eye so why are we looking to their idea of what lasting love it? Is this why we love those movies? We are looking for the ideal of what we've been told love is; what we want it to be.
When Carrie Bradshaw mused "it wasn't logic, it was love", this line proved to me I'm not the only one who does illogical things when cupid rears his cheeky head. I have found that your head and your heart rarely match when it comes to love, which is irritating to say the least. We are taught from an early age to follow our head, sometimes not even our own. "We should do this", and "it's expected of us to do that". If we can't even be trusted to choose a job or hairstyle for ourselves then it follows that a lot of us don't trust our own instinct when it comes to our life partner.
Perhaps there's no need for all this analysis at all as we will just feel it in our hearts anyway. We will just "know"....so they say.