So I was thinking the other. Sometimes it gets me into trouble. Sometimes it turns out really neat with a creative idea. Sometimes I surprise myself and others and come up with something really intelligent and unique. We'll see which this ends up being once I get it written out. But my experience was the last option.
I was thinking about love. I wasn't just thinking about the word, but about the feelings I associate with the word, about the people I love, the things I love. I also thought about how my love has changed over the years (to be cutting edge I'll use the word evolve instead of changed). My love has evolved.
I don't think I'm alone in this either. I would suggest that many people could say the same thing. And here's why I suggest that.
Looking back at my life, my first concept of love was as a child. I was fortunate to have parents who took care of me, who liked me, who fed me, clothed me, kept me safe, taught me many things, disciplined me, drove selfishness out of me (through my rear end), and much more. [Notice I avoided using a certain word there? It's because I tie all of those things into the word love. But I see that now, not then.] My concept of love was probably something along the lines of how we say Thank You when someone does something for us. We say it because they did something for us. So I loved my parents because they took care of me by providing all of those things. I also spent a lot of time with them, so I was familiar with them.
So, two aspects of how I first viewed love: reciprocity and familiarity. There were feelings, but those feelings were because I was so comfortable with them. I didn't feel those feelings for just anyone.
Fast forward a few years, and my view of love began to change. This change took a few years to fully develop, but it involved a concept of love that involved my brothers and cousins, my friends, and then girls! (I'm hoping Ainsley takes a while to get to the 'loving' boys, but I'll be there for her anyway.) With my brothers, it started as the same familiarity issue. I spent so much time with them that I loved them. Then adding in my cousins and friends, it began to evolve into how they made me feel. If I felt valued as a person, if they liked me, if they laughed at my jokes, if they didn't make fun of me, if I could trust them with secrets, then I loved them more. And, really, there wasn't much difference once girls entered the picture. Love was a feeling of how I felt inside: about myself mostly. If I felt good about myself because of interacting with her, then I must love her. If I felt really great about myself, then I must love her A LOT! Life was good.
There were lots of feelings by this point. Feelings pretty much determined whether I loved the person or not, which was in direct correlation to how they treated me.
At this point, we'll enter Rachel. She made me feel great about myself. I liked her, for who I saw her to be. And I liked me, for how I saw her treating me. I did make a distinction by this point in my life. When we were dating we would tell each other that we were 'in love' with each other. We didn't say 'I love you' until we were engaged. I did it because I heard a speaker say that he didn't tell his wife 'I love you' until the very next words were 'Will you marry me?' So that's exactly what I did!
I felt great! Being in love was awesome! The goose bumps from just touching our hands together was electrifying. The talks we had about what we wanted to do with our lives was bonding. Life was great. Love was new and awesome and real and made me feel fully alive! Yet it was still mostly rooted in how she treated me.
I guess I should point out that I wanted to make other people happy too. So there was that aspect of love. If they made me feel great, then I wanted to make them feel great. It was different with Rachel, a stronger feeling I guess, but essentially the same.
Another thing to point out: learning about Jesus and how he taught people to love others and give of yourself even if the other person doesn't give back and to love your enemies and such--that was hard to grasp. Not because I didn't want to get to that point, but because I wasn't seeing how that made any sense. But, I would now say that my journey has brought me to that point. Partly because I'm mostly a nonviolent person anyway, it's my temperament, but also because I try to see the value and worth in each person (as discussed before in a blog post, I'm not always good at this).
All right, back to my original creative idea about love. Now to marriage. Yes, it's different from dating and being engaged. We now lived together, pooping with the door open, changing in front of each other, picking up after each other, laughing together, sleeping in the same bed, eating together every day. It was great...at first. Then it got a little monotonous. Then my view of love evolved again. It's about commitment. I had been committed to things before, but this was the capstone of my commitment in my life to this point. Really, it still is. I was committed to making a life with Rachel. I wanted to care for her, to satisfy her needs and wants more than those of anyone else in the word. I wanted to provide for her and help her to enjoy her life.
So 'love' was becoming less about me. There were still feelings involved, sometimes more intense now. I would still feel good about myself if she treated me well, and I would feel terrible about myself if she made me mad, whether I deserved it or not.
Now we get to the present: being a parent. As I say this, I really owe much of the credit to this whole idea to Leslie McCracken. She said this next part in passing one day when we were eating out. Being a parent is a whole new love. Here's why: this person doesn't do anything that deserves my provision, affection, money, food, etc. Ainsley doesn't give anything back, as far as providing and all that. Being a parent has brought about new feelings and desires in me. I want to protect her more ferociously than I did Rachel when we first met and were first married. It was instantaneous with Ainsley. I would do about anything to care for her and keep her safe and provide for her. I would for Rachel too, but it's different somehow.(I find myself in awe of this new feeling and depth of love. It's hard to explain, really.)
So...for me, my concept of love has evolved. It started as familiarity and reciprocity (I would love back if you took care of me), it moved to trusting you with secrets if you liked me and valued me and didn't make fun of me, moved again to lots of electric feelings as I was in love with my wife, then again to a desire to please and provide for another person, and most recently to wanting above anything else to care for and protect no matter what, in spite of the fact that my daughter doesn't do any of that for me.
Interesting. Thoughts?
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