Love...

I have come to see that this one little four letter word has so much power. I thought today of how I grew up not seeing it outwardly expressed. I knew love in relationships to just mean two people who are always together as a couple. Let me explain, I don't ever remember hearing my grandparents say they loved each other but they were together and I just knew they loved each other. My Poppi took care of my Gram by being the breadwinner, and in return she raised the kids and took care of home. Poppi had his favorite chair and his favorite drink and every night he sat in it and my Gram bought him his dinner, my Gram never worked and she didn't drive. He took her anywhere she needed to go and that was how I saw their love. I saw both my uncles in relationships with my aunts. I never heard them express their love either they were just there, together. I see my mother and father's relationship a little differently because, I saw "signs" of love there. Flowers sent on a regular basis, the home from work kiss, the words in cards on holidays and birthdays. But to say I grew up in what was an overflow of love would be wrong. My Dad wasn't a man of many words but my mom knew he loved her, and because my mom knew, I just knew it existed. Today I find myself feeling in love, and although I am also still learning what that really means in relation to just loving someone. I am finding it to be a very controlling emotion. Sometimes it has a hold on me and I wish it would let go, and I only say that because I don't know what to do with it sometimes. Like I would love to take it and put it in my back pocket, or in the inside zipper of my pocketbook. Somewhere it is easy to get to but still out of the way. I thought this morning about how I know people in my life love me without them constantly needing to show me yet, in relationships I feel like it has to be constant for me to believe it is really there. Why is it not enough for a person who doesn't express his emotions often to say it, not only that he loves you but that he is in love with you? Why does he need to wear it on a t-shirt, or sing it in a love song (yes that is an Alicia Keys song!)? And when life gets in the way of the everyday carefree world we would love to exist in all the time, does that mean he means it any less because he wasn't able to show it when you thought he should? 

I am challenging myself to own up to this Love I am feeling by taking everything else I thought it was out of the  equation. Meaning my too many to name Romantic Movie collection, or the "love" I see expressed among my friends relationships or even the Love I saw or didn't see growing up. As with everything else in my life I want to define my "love" for me. I have loved before, although not a long list it has been there and each time it has taken the previous love to another level. As with everything else, I want to be in the moment with Love, I don't want to wonder about Love in 2 months or even 2 weeks. I just want to appreciate it today.

I had a conversation about it today and the statement was am I sure its that since I really don't have anything else to compare it to? Since it is the first time its really been expressed to me in this way, clearly am I sure its not just because of that reason. My first thought, No its Love. My second thought some hours later, yup still love. I decided that whatever it turns out to be a month from now, a year from now or even 10 years from now whether I am still in it or not, it is and will always be Love.