Thursday, December 06, 2007

That Loving Feeling

I say, "I love you."

What does that mean?

We humans, I, have much faith in that little word.

Too much?

There is within me this faith in love.

I have almost sanguine expectations when it comes to love.

No matter how cynical I become at times, I still have, and hope I will always have faith in love.

I have this idealistic faith that love has magical properties, that love can heal, that love can soothe. Faith that love can make everything right in the end.

Is my faith in love misplaced?

My heart/soul/mind image of the many loves contained within me, is of a twining, twisting, turning, and tangled many colored braid of strength, deep within me, even with those that have caused pain, this braid is the core of my faith in love. So, no, I don't opine my faith in love is misplaced.

I sustain this faith with an abundance of hope. The hope that if I express my love, if my intentions are good and pure, if my actions demonstrate my love, and are interpreted correctly...those I love will know I love them.

* * * * * * *

So many different loves in our lives, some easily definable, some not so easy.

The love we feel toward our parents, siblings, and extended family members, is sometimes the easiest to define, and the most difficult love of all to reconcile within ourselves. For, there is a lifetime full of the give and take of love, of learning how to, and how not to love, so many memories and emotions, beautiful and beastly, holy and horrid, incorporated in familial love.

Those of us that are parents, are filled with a love which is wondrous to behold, but which is also entangled by the dreams we have for our children, this love oftentimes is colored with pride and disappointment in our children, or with what we may perceive as our failings as a parent. But always, always, each thought, emotion or projection is embossed with our love for them. This love we hold within us for our children is as much a part of us as the blood that flows through our veins.

When I think of my friends, ah, so many different levels of love there are. These people that are intertwined in one way or another in my life, whether it be the past, the present, or even the future. These for me, are the steadiest, the safest of loves.

Then there are those, that at one time or another, whether the relationship lasted briefly, or long, these loves linger on. I loved them in a different way. With an intensity that filled my soul, my heart, my very nerve endings. This kind of love seems to involve even the chemical processes of my body, along with and beside the innate sexual being I am. This form of love encompasses another part of me that is separate from familial or friendly love. There is a longing, and at times an almost hungering need intertwined within this paradigm. These loves I find most difficult to fully define, each so varied, but with similarities as well. Because, enshrined within these loves were the ultimate of emotional and physical highs and lows. No matter the depths it fell to, I always knew love was there, even at my angriest, my most despairing, my most pained, I knew it was there, ready to heal me, and hopefully the one I loved. Even though they end, these loves do not disappear. Somewhere deep inside me, the remnants are there, no matter the pain involved during the loving times, during the ending times, there is a sparkling piece of my heart that will always remain theirs.

Over time love can ebb and flow like the tides, or the phases of the moon. But just like the ocean, or the moon, love endures, as does my faith in the power and magic of love.

4 comments:

SoCal Sal said...

For me it is more than a matter of faith. I can’t help but love. Yes different types and different levels, but all beyond my control not to.

S'mee said...

Now if love meant the same thing to everybody, that would make things a lot easier.

Sunny Delight said...

sal,
In a sense it often does feel as if it is out of control...well put.

s'mee,
True, so very true.

Sunny Delight said...

Umm...sal...that was supposed to read...as if it is out of OUR control...duh on me!