07 June 2006
♥ a musing on love
My friends have always defined who I am, how I think of myself. I have a lot of close friends, but I think it's safe to say that there's one person - and she knows who she is - who is rather an extension of my being. Even if she hates Tom Petty, even if she's dated two-thirds of the band which I consider to be something of, well, the antichrist, even if sometimes we fight like sisters, I know that we are, in every way, connected. We were thrown into the same G/T classes by fate, but we chose to be friends, and I think that's how things will always be. So, as a disclaimer, let me just say that I think I'm something of an authority on friendship love, if you know what I mean. I think I've been about as lucky as they come as far as friends go, because I've got the coolest best friend I could ask for. That said, let me babble a bit about falling-in-love love.
I've always felt like love was when you think about the same person every time a sappy song comes on the radio. That just seems to fit, doesn't it? I don't mean, like, "I think about Nick Lachey every time a love song comes on the mix station because he's got a smokin' bod," I mean like, you think about Cedric or whoever from your physics class and as the singer is singing about how groovy whoever the song is about is, you picture you and Cedric doing whatever they're talking about.
But lately, I've been thinking that maybe love isn't just kissing beneath the milky twilight and following each other into the dark. Maybe it's not just listening to the rhythm of your hearts or seeing one another's true colors. Maybe it's something more than that.
But what do I know about love? I'm not self-righteous enough to believe that I have all the answers; I'm just as inexperienced as the next girl. But I think I'm begining to have an idea about what love is.
Sometimes, when everything seems to have gone wrong, when you look in the mirror and can't believe people didn't laugh at you when you walked down the hall, when you're just starting an essay the night before it's due and you know you're going to get two hours of sleep and look like hell in the morning, when your parents are at the end of their collective rope and ready to ban you from going out till the end of the semester, when everything is so screwed up you don't even know where to begin, love steps in and takes care of you. Or rather, someone does it in the name of love.
Sometimes, when your day makes you question whether you maybe actually could throw yourself those last few steps in front of the subway, someone calls just to tell you how beautiful you are. And there's nothing, absolutely nothing like it in the world.
So what I've realized in the last year, Tor, is that love isn't just getting choked up every time I hear "The Luckiest" or falling asleep next to Cookie Monster every night. It's not just thinking of you every time "Learning to Fly" comes up on shuffle or reading things you've written me over and over. Love is this feeling that, for the first time, has made me not an entirely self-absorbed person.
I think love is when you feel so strongly for someone that you would do anything - absolutely anything - for them. You would give up your most prized possession, you would sacrifice your own happiness to maintain theirs. But everyone says that. The really spectacular thing, the thing that every other Valentine's Day card doesn't say, is that it doesn't feel like a sacrifice, because giving something to that person, seeing them happy, is the most rewarding thing in the world.
I've always felt like love was when you think about the same person every time a sappy song comes on the radio. That just seems to fit, doesn't it? I don't mean, like, "I think about Nick Lachey every time a love song comes on the mix station because he's got a smokin' bod," I mean like, you think about Cedric or whoever from your physics class and as the singer is singing about how groovy whoever the song is about is, you picture you and Cedric doing whatever they're talking about.
But lately, I've been thinking that maybe love isn't just kissing beneath the milky twilight and following each other into the dark. Maybe it's not just listening to the rhythm of your hearts or seeing one another's true colors. Maybe it's something more than that.
But what do I know about love? I'm not self-righteous enough to believe that I have all the answers; I'm just as inexperienced as the next girl. But I think I'm begining to have an idea about what love is.
Sometimes, when everything seems to have gone wrong, when you look in the mirror and can't believe people didn't laugh at you when you walked down the hall, when you're just starting an essay the night before it's due and you know you're going to get two hours of sleep and look like hell in the morning, when your parents are at the end of their collective rope and ready to ban you from going out till the end of the semester, when everything is so screwed up you don't even know where to begin, love steps in and takes care of you. Or rather, someone does it in the name of love.
Sometimes, when your day makes you question whether you maybe actually could throw yourself those last few steps in front of the subway, someone calls just to tell you how beautiful you are. And there's nothing, absolutely nothing like it in the world.
So what I've realized in the last year, Tor, is that love isn't just getting choked up every time I hear "The Luckiest" or falling asleep next to Cookie Monster every night. It's not just thinking of you every time "Learning to Fly" comes up on shuffle or reading things you've written me over and over. Love is this feeling that, for the first time, has made me not an entirely self-absorbed person.
I think love is when you feel so strongly for someone that you would do anything - absolutely anything - for them. You would give up your most prized possession, you would sacrifice your own happiness to maintain theirs. But everyone says that. The really spectacular thing, the thing that every other Valentine's Day card doesn't say, is that it doesn't feel like a sacrifice, because giving something to that person, seeing them happy, is the most rewarding thing in the world.
6/07/2006
