Love, Just Because

Love is a word that we hear a lot. It's a word we say a lot. Sometimes we even mean it. A lot of the time we want to mean it. Calling something love cleanses it, it sanctifies it, and that makes it more acceptable in our eyes as well as those of other people, even when it could be more accurately called lust / like / friendship / co-dependence / insecurity / need. Oddly enough, it's the people who use the word most often, the people who say "I love you" a dozen times a day, who aren't terribly sure that what they have is love at all.

And yet I still have faith that true love exists. I've experienced it - not forever love, but love nonetheless.

Love doesn't need to last a lifetime to be true. Although in other people, I've seen that lasting love, that love that will in all probability stay with them until the day they die.

Love is taking a morning off work, unpaid, to sit with your other half while they have a routine blood test because you know they're petrified of needles. Love is picking chicken meat off the drumsticks before serving when you bring home a bucket of KFC because they hate bones. Love is mentally shrugging and buying your girlfriend a cactus for Valentines Day instead of the dozen roses you wanted to get, even though you think it's totally weird, because you know the cactus will please her more than cut flowers ever could.

Love changes from situation to situation. Love is compromising...and it's also knowing that compromise doesn't necessarily mean you each get what you want 50% of the time. Sometimes love means letting your partner have his or her way more often than you get yours, because the thing he / she wants is more important to them than the thing you want is to you. Love is sometimes shrugging and giving your blessing for something you really don't approve of, and sometimes it's putting your foot down about something you know isn't good for the other person, and it's knowing when to do which.

Love is giving in gracefully and letting your husband wear a kilt to your wedding, even though it makes you cringe inside, because he's just so proud of his Scottish heritage. It's seeing your partner come home at night and seeing how tired he is, and washing his back in the shower without jumping on him, even though you've been sitting around with damp panties since 2.30 that afternoon, just waiting for him to come home. It's learning to cook a dish they love and not throwing a hissy fit when they say "it's interesting...not quite how my mother makes it". A lot of the time it's forgiving occasional thoughtless comments, because you know they weren't meant with any malice, and you also know your partner would be horrified if they knew they'd given offense.

Love is respecting someone's morals, and living with them as best you can. In some cases, it's letting them go to find someone they'd be better suited with, if you find that you're simply too different to get along. Love is wanting your partner to be happy. Sometimes it's letting them go gracefully, if they think they'd be happier without you.

Love isn't a set of rules. You may have done all of these things or none of them. Most of all, love is learning about the other person, how they react to things, what they like, what drives them crazy, what fills their heart with joy, what they dream of, and trying your best to do right by them - whatever right is.

Love is a hundred thousand things, and probably the least important bit is saying it out loud, if you can show the person in little ways every day.