The Truth about Love

What Is Love ? by ~PARANOIA--7 on deviantART

I have learned so much about love over the years I've been married.  I've been married only 8 years, so I'm sure there is much more to learn.  The more I learn, the less I know! :)  Socrates knew more then me.  The thing that breaks my heart is how love continually gets advertised in this world as a completely different definition then what it is.

For example, we are told love is about feeling giddy and excited.  Love is when you can't live without someone and are only happy when you are with him or her.  Love is when you are miserable without this person.  Love is the rush of seeing this person walk into the room.  Love is either there or it's not and it cannot change because it's a chemical thing.

All lies.

Love is not selfish.  It's not about me or how I feel.  Actually, love isn't a feeling at all.

Let me explain it this way (and I've heard this before so know I don't own this idea!), love is not a noun but a verb.

*For those English and Grammar junkies like me, let's break it down -if you're not a junkie, just read on- I "love" (noun) you. vs I "love" (verb) you.  What's the difference?  Think about it.

Here's a little story to illustrate.  A man walks into a priest/councilor's office and tells the councilor he doesn't love his wife.  The priest/bishop says to him, "Shame on you."  He says it again, "I don't think you understand.  I don't love her."  The priest/bishop again tells him, "Shame on you."  The man feels misunderstood and frustrated now.  "What do you mean?  It's not my fault.  It does make me sad.  I just don't love her."  Again the priest/bishop responds saying, "Shame on you.  Love is not beyond your control.  If you don't love your wife, you're not doing it right."  After a small conversation the priest/bishop told the man as he left, "Now go LOVE (verb) your wife."

Love is action.

Ever wonder why a mother loves her baby?  It's because she has sacrificed for her baby and continues to sacrifice for her baby every single day.  She puts her baby first and nurtures her baby.  This is why she loves her baby.  Unconditionally.  Because she is not thinking about herself.  She doesn't think to herself, "Oh, today my baby didn't make me happy so I must not love my baby after all."  If she did, everybody would tell her she was a selfish mother that didn't deserve her baby.

Love is not a noun as it seems to be portrayed in romantic comedies and fairytales.  It is in actuality a verb.

It's not an object.  It's not a gift you can be given when you begin a relationship, all wrapped beautifully and tied up with a bow, for you to hold and keep for yourself always.  It cannot be contained or held.  It's an action.  Loving someone is not about how you feel all the time, it's about how you act.

Love is service.
Love is sacrifice.
Love is unselfish acts.
Love is diligent commitment.
Love is pure loyalty.

Finding this new (to me!) definition of love has made me realize that I must take responsibility for the way I love my husband!  It's MY responsibility to love him.  Not his.  If I were to say I didn't love him, that's no one's fault but my own.  It takes away the blaming game.  I can no longer blame him for not making me love him.  That's my responsibility!

Loving my husband is not about what he does or does not do, but what I do.  I must actively love (verb) my husband and then that happy giddy feeling will grow inside and I will love him.  That is truth, even though it's not easy.

It would be so much easier if love was an object or noun, a gift-wrapped thing to hold and enjoy.  But it's not.  It's much more difficult and complicated, but that's what makes love so special.


_______________________________
*I do want to add this:
I do not claim to know what everybody's individual situation is in their own relationships.  Commitment goes both ways and divorce happens more often then anyone would ever want.  But I do believe this is one of the reasons behind it.  No matter your situation, try to be the one to actively love others.  Take responsibility for your own actions and feelings.  Let others be responsible for theirs.  

Escaping My Nevers

Things get so busy during the summer I haven't posted as much, but I had some deep thought lately I thought would be post worthy.

As you may have gathered already, I am prone to self-evaluation and examination on a regular basis.  Sometimes this gets to the point of obsession and some people would probably see it as a bit exhausting.  But it's what I do because it's who I am.  I've seen it in personality types, actually.  So I was once again thinking about the way I think.  Which sounds incredibly dull but it's not, it's pretty deep.

I realized in recent months that I am a dreamer in more then just the sense of the words.  Usually when one says "I am a dreamer." People take it as a positive thing, like someone who has a great imagination or someone who thinks big things and does them.  But I haven't been that kind of dreamer.  I am trying to become that kind of dreamer because I see that kind of dreamer as much more healthy then the way I have been for the majority of my life.  I don't dream about what ifs.  I don't dream about somedays.  I found that throughout my life I've dreamed about alter-realities that I think of as nevers.  Because I have accepted within myself these dreams are nevers, I sort of contented myself with a lesser reality and escaped my reality by dreaming.

I recently read a phrase posted on Facebook that said: Your imagination should be used not to escape reality, but to create it.
True dat.

I looked back on my life as a hopeless dreamer and realized something rather tragic.  Because I dreamed in this way, I gave up on reality ever being at all dreamy.  I gave up the hope of a realistic romance or an amazing life.  I told myself things like that only happened on television or only happened to other people.  So of course they never happened to me.  This mindset made me settle so hard in real life and then I would live in my dreams because that was where I felt happy.  But it wasn't real, and I wasn't really happy.  So my depression grew with my disappointment with the gap between real life and my dreams.  But whoever told me my dreams weren't realistic?  Why didn't I think I was good enough for the dream-boat dark and tall to sweep me off my feet?  I think I saw opportunities sometimes and let them pass by because those things don't happen to me.  This mindset really messed up my dating life back in the day.

Over the last year or so I have been focusing on the real more.  I've escaped the dreaming for a while and it's like my head has been lifted out of the deep water.  I took a stroll down the street this summer and it felt like I was seeing my neighborhood clearly for the first time.  I'd walked down that street multiple times in past years but I always did it in a fog of dreams.  I also wasn't taking advantage of my children realistically either.  Instead of seeing the blessings right before my eyes I was dreaming about the blessings I felt I never realistically could have.

Then I opened my eyes to the reality of my blessings.  I am married to a great guy who not only helps cook and clean when he gets home, but he's incredibly responsible and a hard-worker and he cares deeply about me and our children even if he can't express it sometimes in the way I wish he would.  Men are being shaped into emotional cripples...it's an epidemic that must be stopped.  I could write a whole other post on that, but I'll stop there.  I love my husband.  When I get my head out of the clouds of alter-reality and nevers, I find the nows and the this-is-happenings and realize what I have been SO taking for granted like an idiot.

I am also the mother of some great little boys.  I thought I was investing everything into my children as a good mother should.  I feel guilty all the time as most mothers would because every single day something is not done that should be.  But I've got to learn that the list of to-dos and to-dones will always be lop-sided and priorities must be variable and what I didn't get done today can always be done tomorrow.  And life doesn't end because of my not-done-yet list.  What is most important is that I watch my kids in the now.  I see them today because of course everyone knows the cliche, tomorrow comes too soon.  But the first step is opening my eyes and stop dreaming about nevers because with my kids the possibilities are endless and I know of one never to embrace: I NEVER want my kids to think of their dreams as nevers!

This world I live in is a beautiful place with lots of good.  I'm going to start seeing it for how it truly is, because dreams are founded upon realities.  People really do great things.  Great things really do happen to good people.  Instead of losing myself in my dreams I can work for my dreams to be realities.  I'm going to create and stop escaping.  Because honestly what's real is too good to try to escape.

A New Year Begins

Over the last year, I have learned so much!  I'm so grateful for the people and programs that have come into my life over the past year to make me realize how much I had it wrong and how much I could change things to gain more happiness.

Happiness comes from within.  That was the biggest thing I learned this year.  I always knew it.  People had told me this for years.  It was like a cliche I couldn't get away from.  But I never knew how to do it.  I never knew how to create that happiness from within.  Now I do.  That's quite an accomplishment, I'd say!  Happiness comes from within when you truly learn to accept and love yourself.  Look in the mirror and say "I am beautiful" and believe it!  Then, it's going out and letting others enjoy who you are because you're a loveable person.  Giving that love to other people can really make you love yourself even more!  But instead of giving and trying to feel the love from without, it's loving first and then giving and it all expands from there!

I also learned more about hope this year.  I learned that hoping for something is the thread that keeps life moving forward.  All you need is that hope and the day can end and another begins.  I have learned that my Savior loves me.  He has given me everything and can give me more if I just ask.  He will help me with everything and He has the ability to make me strong.  I just have to turn to Him for the strength.  Sometimes it's the turning that's the hardest part.  Just look up!  You'd think it would be an easy thing.

I also learned this year to love my husband (anyway).  :)  I have really grown in this aspect.  I met my husband and I loved him because I love people.  I just do.  I loved him because I love everyone. (No wonder I was so bad at dating! I loved people and couldn't get the difference with anyone special so I'd say "I love you" and get these guys all excited in spite of myself.)  Then I loved him because I felt it was right to marry him.  Then I loved him because he was my husband and it was what I was supposed to do.  Then I denied within myself that it was real love.  Then I kicked myself for giving up on romance.  Then I "loved" him because I had to.  Then I got mad.  I got mad at myself.  I got mad at him.  I think I even got mad at God.  But this year has changed a lot.  This year, I looked at him and remembered the way I felt when we were dating.  I did love him that way!  I had loved him once, and he was still that same person.  He was still the awkward "NCMO" (non-commital make-out) King from college who hunched over his guitar and swung his keys around from his lanyard.  He was just more mature now.  He'd replaced the girls with politics and he replaced the music with sports.  But it was still him.  And I realized I wasn't giving him any credit.  I'd say this is quite the accomplishment for my year too.  I learned that love is not a noun, it's a verb.  I learned that if I don't LOVE my husband (as in, an action verb), then I won't ever love him.  It was a big change in the way I live, and it has changed my level of happiness as well.  Now I feel like I love my husband, not for any of the reasons I've stated before, but I love him because I feel good loving him.  I love him because it's a fun thing to do.  I love him because he deserves it.  I love him because I'm grateful for everything he does for me.  I love him because he's so handsome!  I love him because he's my children's father!  I love him because I'm going to be with him forever!  And forever doesn't sound so bad, actually.  (Especially because after this life, many of our little annoying habits and weaknesses will be much better!)

This year, I have learned to let go of things I cannot control.  I'm learning more about how to deal with the things I can control and trust God.  I have learned that trusting God is the real key to the atonement.  It has helped me to forgive myself.  It has helped me forgive others.  And I have finally been able to put the past firmly in the past!  I no longer stay up nights thinking about that moment in my sophomore high school year, or that day when I was single in college, or that thing I should have said back in my newly-wed days.  It's gone!  And that's such a relief!

Last New Years, I chose one word as my New Years Resolution.  Do you remember what it was?  If you do, I commend you for following my blogs for so long. :)  I'm loved!  :)  Anyway, go back and read that post if you want.  It's short.  Shorter than this one, for sure.  (And I said I wasn't going to have any long posts on this blog....sighs.)  My word for last year was "Whisper" and I think I've gotten SO MUCH better about keeping my voice down with my kids.  I'm far from perfect about it, of course.  But I'm much better.  I don't think I sat and acted like a three-year-old this year.  Maybe once. :)

But I've also gotten better at listening to that Whisper of the spirit.  It has blessed me so much!  Yet another huge lesson I have learned this year!  How to recognize the voice of the spirit and differentiate it from other voices.  I never realized those other voices were even out there! (Thus, the confusion on my listening to the spirit in the past!)  But they are!  The biggest key to listening to the spirit that I have found is this: It's light.  God is light.  Christ is light.  The spirit wouldn't feel heavy, like a brick on my chest trying to get me to do something.  Oh no.  It feels light and as though a burden is lifted from me.  So I started practicing following that light feeling and every time I felt the heaviness creeping up on me, (for example, when I would feel the impulse to be online to waste time) I would turn from it and do something better.  It has made an amazing difference!  Not only do I feel better because I'm making better choices in my daily life, but I'm finding it easier to follow that spirit because I'm actually listening!  Da-da-da DUM!!!  :)  It's been a wonderful thing.

So a New Year has begun.  2013 is upon us and I'm once again contemplating what to choose as my one little word for this year.

I've chosen "Serve" as my New Years Resolution One Little Word.  At the end of 2012, I had a new neighbor move in nearby and it gave me all kinds of opportunities to service.  I let her borrow my vacuum, I helped her unpack into her kitchen, I helped her decorate her kitchen, I stayed to lock up for her during an emergency, I babysat her little boy, I did her dishes, I took her breakfast, I invited her over for dinner, I helped her unpack her little boy's bedroom, I put him to bed for her when her other child was sick and she was busy with her, I've sat with her, I've chatted with her, I've accepted her completely, I've found we have so much in common, and I'm her friend.  From the very beginning, I was drawn to her spiritually.  I was becoming addicted to the beautiful feeling that overwhelmed me as I served her.  I kept finding more opportunities to do so.  And the fierce loyalty between us now is a wonderful reward.  It also brought that special Christmas spirit into my heart in a way I have never felt before.

So over the next year, I play to focus on this one little word.  I'm going to look for more opportunities for me to serve others.  Whether it is in my own home or elsewhere.  I want to keep this special spirit with me.   I want to remember it all throughout the year.

Another new tradition I decided to start is this thing I saw on Facebook.  So I have a jar on my piano now that is marked "Happy Happenings of 2013" and I plan to fill it with little papers containing happy things that happen throughout the year and so we can read and reminisce during next New Years.  I'm pretty excited about it.  So far I've cheated a little and placed the two movie tickets from New Years Eve inside (technically not 2013 but oh well).  We saw Les Miserable together and it was incredible!  Happy New Year, everyone!

(Yes, I'm finally finishing up this insanely long post!)

I Can Dream

Too often when we get married ... or maybe it's when we have children, we lose ourselves in that role.  I'm a wife now.  I'm a mother now.  Somehow being a mother makes us decide everything else doesn't matter at all and we forget our dreams.  We forget who we were once.

I started thinking about the things my husband wants and my kids need or want.  It's good to care about these things.  They are important things to care about.  It's good to value what other people want.  But don't lose yourself in it!  I got to the point where I would feel guilty for buying a bottle of fingernail polish for $2 because it wasn't important enough.  It was a waste of money.  I had to ask my husband's permission first.  Was it him that made me feel this way?  No, it was me.

Although it is not right to completely and selfishly disavow responsibilities for dreams, it is ok to dream!  It really is.

So sit down and remember who you were before you were married.  Remember what you cared about, what you dreamed about every day.  Remember what you aspired for.

Before I was married, I loved to sing.  I liked doing my hair.  I liked being with people and learning from them.  I wanted to write a book.  I wanted to be a mother someday, but I also wanted to travel.  I wanted to see Paris.  I wanted to see Prince Edwards' Island.  I wanted to meet celebrities.  I loved art.  I wanted to create it, but felt I couldn't do it well enough.  I loved climbing our willow trees.  I loved dreaming about love and romance.  I liked creating heartfelt gifts for other people.  I liked going places with friends.  I had a curiosity for being rebellious but never really was.  I admired rebels. :)  I liked to drive.  Just drive until I got lost and then found myself again.

That's still me.  I can still dream about these things.  Of course, I shouldn't strive for those dreams at the expense of what is most important to me, my family, but I can still dream of these things and remember who I am.  I can still remember what I used to care about, even if my husband doesn't care about those things so much.  It's ok to do that.  It's not selfish.

So go write down the things you value and dream about.  Just you.  Not what your kids like.  Not what your husband wants.  Just what you want.  It's ok to buy that bottle of fingernail polish once in a while.  It's ok to dream.