Day 36 - Never Fall in Love

Now, I know the title of today’s entry might seem a bit strange to you, but bear with me, and I will make it all clear.  As I was writing the entry for “Fall for Your Type,” I thought about the music video in which Jaime Foxx is seen falling through some glass.  He was singing, “tell me why I always fall for your type,” and it made me think about the danger of falling in love with anyone.  When you fall, you have little if any control over how and where you will land.  The moments between beginning to fall and the landing might feel free, like a rush as the air blows against you and gravity calls you to the ground, but the moment you land, the ecstasy is gone, and all that’s left is the pain and the memory of what was.

I don’t think real love looks anything like that.  Real love is as conscious as it is freeing, and though people tend to dislike the idea of love (typically associated with just the heart) being dealt with in the mind (typically reserved for things like reason, rationale, and anything not related to emotions), I believe that real love involves the entire being.  It is not something that you stumble blindly or get pushed into, but it is a blossoming of a relationship in which two individuals find connections on multiple levels and allow themselves to grow and develop in shared space with someone else.  When this is the case, people grow in love, aware of what’s going on, and able to decide in healthy ways how things should proceed.

Please understand, I’m not saying that love is a purely mental exercise, and that you can plan out emotions and connection and the like to a T.  Trying to think through and control love like this will kill any actual love that is there.  What I am saying is that love isn’t like in the fairy tales or as it is typically conveyed in the media.  It’s not the teenage giggles and doodling your initials in your notebook.  While all this can be part of it, mature love always goes beyond the initial flutters of love and finds its base in something real and substantial. 

So, grow in love.  Take the time to walk with the loved ones in your life and grow in appreciation for who they really are – this is essentially the definition of love.