Compared to the North American teenage norm, I guess it took me relatively long to fall in love. I remember that not knowing what love felt like was something that felt very present to me. Strange how sometimes the absence of something can fill an entire space. It was a concern of mine that I would never find love or really love someone. I felt a bit incapable with how long it was taking me - honestly thought it might never happen. I thought that I needed something huge to happen in order to love someone. Perhaps they would save my life or some other equally grand gesture before a light would go off in my head and I would finally just get it. "Aha! I am in love!"
Being in love seemed something very daunting before. The trademark, for me, was being completely selfless and giving up pieces of myself for the better of another person. That's how I was going to know that I was in love. And that's a huge feat in my books. I'm not a selfish person by any means, and I get a kick out of being selfless and giving towards my friends, but I see the two acts differently. Being generous towards my friends is something that I impart onto them out of my own free will. My imaginings of being in love involved being selfless almost without my willing, being selfless because I couldn't help myself, because I wanted good things for this other person so much that it was beyond my control to prevent them from having power over me.
There are things about love you will never be able to explain to someone who has never been in love. I now understand this to be the absolute truth. Not because the way you feel is inconceivable, but because we can all only learn from experience, not example. If I hadn't learned my lessons the hard way the first time I loved, I don't think I would appreciate how wonderful the second time is right now.
The first time I loved, it took me by surprise, but my instincts were correct. I realized when I felt selflessly for this person and it gave me so much joy to give and give and give for this boy. He didn't love me, but as a naive first lover I didn't think it was a problem. I felt that so long as I loved him, my selflessness would sustain my love for him and I would carry the way I felt about him in my heart forever. What I didn't expect was how integral he felt to me. I knew I could survive without him, but I felt like I couldn't be happy without him. I felt as though so long as I knew he existed in the world, I could never be happy with anyone else. This was obviously a hyperbole and grossly untrue. But when you never knew you could feel that way about someone, coupled by the fact that I had serious doubts about whether I ever could feel that way about someone, the joy, relief and pride I felt for myself was awesome to me. I loved that I loved. Even when my heart was broken in the end and I was left, I loved that I loved. I loved that I could love.
The second time I loved, the love I have right now, is all the more special because of my first love. I was foolish to think that I could love on my own and that I would be able to keep loving someone on the strength of my will alone. A love that is not reciprocated, and is not nourished, cannot grow. And a love that doesn't grow is not really love at all. Two people don't remain static beings. We learn, we change, and we grow in so many ways every single day. Every day I make the choice to love someone, the choice to love who that someone is today and not who they were yesterday. And I don't mean that I can turn love on and off like a switch, but every single day I wake up and make the choice to keep working at my love. Some days it's easy, and some days it's the hardest thing I've ever done. But above all I know it's the strongest and most honest thing I'll ever do, which is the reason I'll keep trying to do it.
My marker for love is still selflessness. But my marker now for a love that is worth nourishing, worth working at, and worth the continuous daily effort, is being offered that selflessness in return. It was one thing to know what loving someone was, to know what giving your whole heart feels like, but giving your heart and getting one in return - now that is a whole different ball game. And what a game it is! What a wonderful, terrifying and exciting game it is! To have that surety that someone will meet you halfway, take care of you when you are down, and always say it back is the most wonderful feeling. It is somehow as magical as I imagined it being, while also feeling so very grounded.
I have learned that although love does involve being so very selfless and giving up control of yourself, love worth the time, effort, and energy, involves someone returning all those thing to you. I know now that my first love didn't deserve all that I had to give. But my love now takes everything I've got and returns it to me ten-fold. I was so glad I found myself capable of love, but I have learned that it is nothing compared to the utter joy of being loved in return. And although this is a lesson I would love to impart, I would never deprive anyone of the complete blessing it is to learn it on their own.
