Love is ...

What is love?  Is it a feeling?  Is it something you can have in different levels?  Or is it the one, real thing you have with the person you (hopefully) spend the rest of your life with?

No doubt you’ve all said, ‘I love you’ to other partners before the partner you are with now but was it real?  You thought it was real at the time, right?  Or sometimes did you just say it out of habit?

Me personally, I think the difference is that when you are in real love with someone and after the initial infatuation has been replaced with routine, you still get those little nervous, expectant butterflies when you think they might be on their way to see you.

One of my colleagues, Lisa, said that she could sense real electricity between Him and Me when he came into our office. 

This is after we’ve been together for 6 years, through real ups and downs, drama’s, emotional turmoil, two amniocentesis’s, two births, a miscarriage, huge arguments, huge laughs and initially making lots of mistakes and finally, starting to grow up together. 

I am no expert by any stretch of the imagination and I probably mess things up more than others do.  I said before I am tactless but I am also hot headed, opinionated and sarcastic.  I'd say that although I am low maintenance deep down, I am in no doubt that I am anything but hard work, in a relationship sense.  Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't have to explain myself and I feel angry and let down if I feel He doesn't understand where I'm coming from straight away.  He can be an utter d*ckhead too but it works.  Finally, after all the sh*t and doubt and upset, we are in that place where you know, you are with 'the one'.

Here's what I think love is;

Wanting them to love your new favourite song

Watching for their reaction to a sketch/joke that you think is funny

Needing them to publicly be in your corner, even if they disagree with you in private

Buttering their toast last, so that it stays warmest

Standing there, waiting thirstily with a new jar of coffee in your hand, for them to finish their morning poo, so that they can break the foil with a spoon

Holding their face and silently looking into each others eye’s til you actually feel your heart swell in your chest

Sitting at the harbour, on a romantic table for two, thinking, “I can’t wait to squeeze that gargantuan blackhead on his nose” and when you get home, although he finds it disturbing, he actually lets you do it

Your brain being consumed with thoughts of them throughout your day

Jumping to their defence, like a fearless lioness protecting its cubs, when they’re threatened then thinking afterwards, “Shit, they would’ve eaten me”!

Worrying about them unnecessarily

Literally wanting to rip each others heads off then, after getting ten minutes away from them, returning and nonchalantly asking some frivolous question about whatever

Being yourself around them, including not fake laughing at their jokes, or pretending the dinner they’ve cooked you is nice

Massaging their feet whilst watching telly, then stopping to have a sip of wine and realising your fingers now stink of cheese.  Then carrying on regardless

Possibly biggest test of all – mixing up your CD’s with theirs! Who can be arsed going, “this one’s mine, that’s yours, no, that one is mine”, when you’ve split up? So, if you’re not sure it’s real love, keep your CD’s in separate stands

Knowing that they are your soul mate and you cannot be without them.

He just walked in the kitchen and I collared him to ok this post before adding it on here and he said, “love is, walking into the kitchen just to grab a beer because you’re in the middle of a game of Black Ops (xbox) and she’s sitting at the computer, in stripy socks and an inside out sweatshirt going blah blah blah and you stand there listening because you want to be near her”!

Him & Me

Songs often sum love up, when we can’t.  I’ll leave you with a line from a Stone Temple Pilots song that I think is quietly powerful ….

“If you should die before me, ask if you can bring a friend”.