In a day and age when love is so disposable, how it is even possible to put a definition on love? Too often, it gets complicated, a mess of feelings and emotions. The tricky thing is, feelings and emotions are not static. If you want a monumental, extraordinary type of love, the first step is to recognize that a relationship based on feelings and hormones is as steady as the castle built on sand.
Love isn't all butterflies or a blushing first kiss. Love isn't having your head swim after a night at the movies or a romantic letter. Love isn't even a sweet long goodnight text in paragraph form. Those things certainly are wonderful, and I myself am a hopeless romantic through and through. I swoon at "The Notebook," and I dream of rose petals and love poems. I delight in romantic gestures, and I think they are a lovely part of any relationship, but they are not what makes the love real.
Love is a choice. You don't wake up one morning and fall out of love with a person. Every day, you make a choice to love that person just as deeply, truly and madly as you loved them the day before. If love wasn't a choice, I don't think it would be all that special. After all, it wouldn't be their choice to be with you. Love isn't left up to the fates to whom it falls upon. I think one reason "falling in love" is so easy of a thing to say is it's too real, too painful to accept the alternative: that you consciously make the decision to commit yourself or walk away every day. It's easier that way. Once you see the not-so-pretty side of a person, it's easier to say you just don't love them anymore, and you can't help it.
You see, I've seen the good and the bad. I've seen the tears of joy and the tears of pain. I've seen the mountaintops and the valleys. I've felt deep joy and hurt. Love isn't going to be wonderful all the time. It will be ugly and messy, and the person that you were once smitten with is going to show you a different side. And you need that. You need to see every facet of a person if you are committed to them. You need to know what they look like when tragedy strikes, they've hit rock bottom and depression sets in. You need to know what they look like when their patience has been tested and they are filled to the brim with stress. You need to know them in debt, in anger, in loneliness, in a jealous fit, in fear, in the dark. You need to walk with them in the shadows to bask with them in the light.
Every single on of us has an ugly side. It's the side we don't show to the world. If we did, who would ever love us? Commitment to a person's beauty along with their flaws is love. Being there in the midst of the darkness and the deep valleys is what makes the light on the mountaintop even more amazing. Your choice to commit, to help, to serve and to guide this person is what defines love. It's not giving up when the road gets hard. It's wrapping their arm around your shoulder and carrying their burden for a while. It's recognizing that life is tough and people are human. Life is so much more beautiful when you wake up every morning and choose to love that charming, messy, impatient, marvelous person who puts a smile on your face on the mountaintops and in the valleys.
