For many of us, we know our parents love us and we love them. It is also the case that those of us with kids love our kids and we love them. You could say that that love flows back and forth despite knowing them or even without actually knowing them. It’s good to be loved, right?
How many times have you professed love for someone? This wonderful, engrossing feeling that courses through your body: bright, beautiful, and scary. I think it probably happens more often in the teenage years that those intense feelings of love for someone change every few weeks — maybe not the feelings, but the someone. As we mature we ask ourselves how do we know we love someone — butterflies and flutterings abound, the inability to imagine life without them and never wanting them to leave your side. Yes, it must be love! Eventually those “feelings” settle a bit, you don’t spend so much time sitting on the edge of a rainbow. You, of course, have already decided that you love this person, so you carry on.
And here is where you have the potential to love someone you know and have a real loving relationship or that other thing. So many intimate relationships are full of professed love — love at first sight, at first touch, at first fantasy. But that “love” can keep us from loving someone because we know them. Being mindful about the rush of endorphins that consume you when you begin a relationship can help you step back and get to know the person you are crazy about. Yes, that may mean that you discover this person is not someone you want to be with. That’s okay! We aren’t meant to be with everyone, but everyone does at least deserve the respect of getting to be known and not just placed in a box. And how lovely would it be to be loved for who and what we actually are?
Nathalie