I Love Because I Can

The eagle soars high because he can. The coyotes cry at night because they can. The cougar screams aloud because she can. I love as I have never loved, because I can.


Perhaps it's the feeling of having loved and lost. Perhaps it's knowing that love is worth risking all. Perhaps it's because of the struggles and trials I've had in my life. Whatever it is, I know that I risk nothing and yet risk everything to love another. Still, as I always have, my heart freely gives of itself.


There's always that chance that someone won't love or can't love in return. And yet, what is risked?


When a gift is given, it's not done with the intention of receiving something in return. It's a thought, a gesture. It's a way to show someone that we care about them, appreciate them, will miss them, or even that we love them. Why should it be any different with love?


Love is a gift. It's one of the greatest gifts we can give to another human being. It should never be given expecting anything in return, even for our feelings to be returned. If they are returned to us, it's a reason to be overjoyed. We have, in return, been given the greatest gift someone can give to us.


How does someone "give" their love?


It can be a simple gesture - a hand picked rose placed on the windshield of a car. It can be a picnic in the park with cold chicken and baked beans. It can be a bottle of wine with crackers and cheese on the table when coming home from work. It can even be a romantic comedy rented at the video store and watched in the privacy of ones own home, snuggled together on a cozy couch with a little dog licking at your hand.


How do you know it's love?


This paragraph remained empty for a long moment as I sat here trying to decide what I would write about this subject. How do you know it's love? How would I know just from being near someone if they loved me? How would someone I love ever know of my affections? How would anyone ever know if they were loved unless someone told them as much in plain and simple terms?

I can drop hints and clues with the best of them, but far too often the hints are cryptic and the clues are acres above the heads of others. I could tell someone that I loved them, but the words are used far too often these days to have as much meaning as they are meant to have. I could tell someone I missed their voice, or that I liked their laugh. I could tell them that I loved their smile, the twinkle in their eyes or the way they looked at me. So if I can do all of that, why is it I don't feel like telling someone I love them is ever enough? Even defining the word "love" with the help of dictionary.com doesn't seem to help with the struggle I have of trying to indicate how I feel when I 'love' someone, even with it's 28 definitions exquisitely spelled out in plain black and white print.


I can even go so far as to say I adore someone, but to say "I love you" just doesn't seem strong enough. It's more than four little letters. It's more than the love song written in cliche rhymes and sappy lyrics. It's more than a photo of a stolen kiss, a moment suspended in time. It's more than the parallels of two lives, always coming so close to touching and never reaching out.

Love is simply this:

I 'love' wanting to be around someone all the time, to be near them, to talk to them and to touch them. I 'love' with my whole heart, every fiber of my being, every basic instinct in my body. It's a raw emotion, animalistic and instinctive. It's the emotional need of knowing that the person you love is right there at a moment's notice, that they would drop everything to come to the rescue. Love can be shared between friends, family, soul mates and lovers. Love is so much more grand than just a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Love is a feeling of belonging, to read the words or to hear the words "my girl" and to have them shoot a shiver through your spine. Love is knowing that you 'belong' WITH someone or TO someone.

Love is all of that and more.






love [luhv]
–noun
1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2. a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
3. sexual passion or desire.
4. a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.
5. (used in direct address as a term of endearment, affection, or the like): Would you like to see a movie, Love?
6. a love affair; an intensely amorous incident; amour.
7. sexual intercourse; copulation.
8. ( initial capital letter ) a personification of sexual affection, as Eros or Cupid.
9. affectionate concern for the well-being of others: the love of one's neighbor.
10. strong predilection, enthusiasm, or liking for anything: her love of books.
11. the object or thing so liked: The theater was her great love.
12. the benevolent affection of god for His creatures, or the reverent affection due from them to God.
13. Chiefly Tennis . a score of zero; nothing.
14. a word formerly used in communications to represent the letter L.

–verb (used with object)
15. to have love or affection for: All her pupils love her.
16. to have a profoundly tender, passionate affection for (another person).
17. to have a strong liking for; take great pleasure in: to love music.
18. to need or require; benefit greatly from: Plants love sunlight.
19. to embrace and kiss (someone), as a lover.
20. to have sexual intercourse with.

–verb (used without object)
21. to have love or affection for another person; be in love.

—Verb phrase
22. love up, to hug and cuddle: She loves him up every chance she gets.

—Idioms
23. for love,
a. out of affection or liking; for pleasure.
b. without compensation; gratuitously: He took care of the poor for love.
24. for the love of, in consideration of; for the sake of: For the love of mercy, stop that noise.
25. in love, infused with or feeling deep affection or passion: a youth always in love.
26. in love with, feeling deep affection or passion for (a person, idea, occupation, etc.); enamored of: in love with the girl next door; in love with one's work.
27. make love,
a. to embrace and kiss as lovers.
b. to engage in sexual activity.
28. no love lost, dislike; animosity: There was no love lost between the two brothers.
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The Handshake

That initial attraction speaks volumes about a person. Sometimes all it takes is a smile across a room, a greeting, an introduction or a handshake.

He shook my hand with eagerness. It was obvious he thought I was an attractive female. I'm not one to see myself for my physical appearance, and actually ignore it completely unless applying my makeup in the morning. I don't see myself as pretty or attractive, but rather as smart, driven and determined. I blushed instinctively.

I could tell just from looking at him that my head would fit perfectly on his shoulder, but I also knew that I shouldn't have such thoughts the first time I met someone. His eyes burned into me, his smile warmed me, his touch made my hand burn with a pleasant tingle. There was no denying it, there was something special about him.

That was too long ago to want to admit. I didn't do anything about it.

I won't let another opportunity like that to pass me by.

I'm doing something about it this time...

Purpose

I was awe struck as I walked into my little appartment last night. I had just climbed out of the shower and was going to settle into bed to read for a while before drifting off to strange and erratic dreams when I heard a noise below. The cats were settling in to bed. The lights outside filtered through the wooden slats covering the window, eluminating the room with a pleasant, faint glow. I couldn't help but to smile, remembering fondly the wonderful memories I've already made in that room with my own friends and lovely little pets.

I climbed down from the loft to fetch myself a bottle of water. I walked through my very own living room and saw the computer on the desk still open to a project for work. I had managed to feel highly successful yesterday in the mid-year meeting and was ready to attack my job with a new sense of purpose and determination. My smile grew for reasons I couldn't yet share. Oliver jumped down from his carpeted tree and nuzzled my bare leg.


I've been in some hard spots, and I've had a really hard time trying to find my place in this world. Even now it's a daily struggle for me, but I know where I'm meant to be. I know what I want to do for my career, and getting there has been a challenge, it's one I'm eager to face every day when I wake up. I look forward to going in to work. Even now that path isn't guaranteed, but I know that I'm well on my way and I have a support system greater than any I've ever known. And yet, as I walked through the appartment last night, I realized something that maybe I had known all along and just hadn't realized.

I have my home. It's the first time I've felt like I belonged somewhere and had my own place in my entire life. I belong here. This is my sanity, my safety, and my savior. My career has just begun and I have great plans for my direction, but I have everything in my life that I've ever really searched for - stability, self-sufficiency and confidence.

This was an eye opening walk through my own place. I found something in the past year I guess I never really lost - my inspiration and my soul. They've just been waiting for me to realize that all I had to do was reach out for them, held captive in the recesses of my own mind. If not for people like my boss, friends and co-workers who have stood by me in this most difficult time, I may never have taken this walk to the kitchen on this warm and humid night in my house coat and slippers and seen the magic of my own home around me. I wouldn't have that glorious appartment. I wouldn't have my two cats, warm and friendly, loving and giving. I wouldn't be where I am in this world, with dreams, desires and determination to not only succeed, but to conquer.

Yes, I am still me. I am that vibrant, energetic little girl I knew growing up. I'm that sassy, somewhat crazy redhead I knew in my teens. I'm that young, ambitious adult I knew in my early 20's who saw the world as nothing but a game to win. I'M BACK, and nothing can stop me this time.

My job has opened new doors to meeting new people and trying new things. I've become more empowered than ever before, and after so many years of searching and never knowning, I've found my niche. I've found where I belong.

I've finally found my purpose.

The Matters of Love

"The only thing in love that matters are the first moments of arousal and intense pleasure that follows."

-Anonymous Friend.

I got this very interesting thought in my emails a couple of years ago from someone I respect, admire, and trust. It's given me much to think about.

The first feelings of love are those that overwhelm us and blind us to all of our other senses. The fight or flight instinct is gone in those first few moments. Casanova was said to have many lovers, but only one love. Romeo and Juliet looked at one another across the room, and it was love at first sight. They forgot for a moment all of the family rivalry issues between their namesakes. Did things loose their spark or passionate energy after those first few moments? For Casanova, perhaps that was the case, for no woman could ask a man such as him to be faithful. For Romeo and Juliet, perhaps that was true as well, for they lasted not long after that first encounter. The love and passion they felt for one another consumed them until death, however.

What of it for me then?

I am the exception to many rules, as Ive said before. I believe that the first moments of arousal and that intense pleasure that follows are very important to a relationship, and if the relationship is a good, healthy one, this very moment can happen often, sometimes several times in a single day. The two fall into each others arms, consumed by their passion for one another, and completely loose themselves in the moment.

I imagine that's the way it will be when I can finally have an unbridled amount of time with the one I find myself thinking about night and day. He fills my mind and heart night and day, and consumes more of my senses than I ever thought a single person could. What would those first moments of freedom together be like if there was no place we needed to go, nothing we needed to do? Would we be consumed by that sexual adrenaline for merely an hour? Would we feel just as much passion if not lying naked on the top of rumpled covers together? Is it possible to feel that same passion, longing, and devotion if only sitting on a couch together watching a sappy old movie? How about if we were holding hands as we walked along a dirt path in the green hills on a cool spring morning?

I know I would feel that way about my mate as we walked along in a crowded shopping mall around Christmas time, barely able to hear one another over the children shouting at the first signs of the fat man in the Santa costume. Would he feel the same way? From everything I know I desire in life, he most certainly would. THAT is how I will know that he is the one I've looked so long and hard to find.

No, I think more than the first moments of arousal and intense pleasure are important to me. I believe its the very sense of knowing that the person you love is also your best friend. Its knowing that even blinded by age, deafened by time, and crippled by long existence, the one you love will still love you passionately.

Have you ever seen the movie "The Notebook"? That's how I envision it to be the last moments in life,... and in love.