"The heart wants what it wants. There's no logic to these things. You meet someone and you fall in love and that's that." -- Woody Allen

The other day, I was thinking about love and how I knew I was in love with the person I am with currently. Love is a complex subject, and it is so difficult to explain exactly what it is, how it feels or how you know that you really love someone. There are also different types of love, although they all share similar characteristics. I would do almost anything for my family, but I would also do almost anything for the person I am in a relationship with right now. The love that we have for our families is not necessarily the same type of love we have for our friends or our significant other, so things can be frightful when you are not positive if someone loves you unconditionally or not.

For many years I was constantly questioning what being in love felt like and I just assumed that I would end up being alone forever. People would always tell me, "you just know when you feel it", and those words could not be anymore true. When it comes to being in love, the feelings we experience are extremely complicated and unique. I can honestly say that what I feel at this point in my life for another person is nothing I ever even thought I could feel.

Just like many other people, I have not had the best relationships in my past. As much as I did not want the things that have happened to me in prior relationships to affect my judgement of others, it surely did. There was a great fear of people being unfaithful or just disappearing which made me stay guarded with a wall up that was almost impossible to knock down. Only one person has been able to do so and he has also made me grow tremendously as a person. I was never one to be good with words or very open with my feelings, but when I felt true intimate love it became easy. Suddenly, the world changed when I was not even looking and I knew my heart was at home.

"There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment." -- Sarah Dessen

The best way I could explain how I knew I was head over heels for my significant other is when I noticed myself putting his feelings before my own and always making sure he was okay no matter how I was feeling. When you truly love another person, their wants and needs become one of your most important priorities. He is not only my partner, but he is my better half and my best friend. I look at him and know that I would not want to grow old or spend time with anyone else. I know I am in love because if we do happen to become elderly together, and he got terribly sick, I would not be afraid to take care of him completely to keep him as comfortable as possible. I cannot think of any other way to thoroughly explain knowing what real, unconditional love is. It can be quite scary, to be honest, but when you let go and embrace the feelings they are pure magic. Now I wake up every morning, falling in love over and over, but even more every time.