There is a difference between loving someone and being in love with them. When my wife first told me she thought she was falling in love with me it carried so much more weight than a simple “I love you” ever could.
There’s just something about the process of being in love that is dynamic, that is special in so many ways. I liken it to making love a place, a room, a safe haven, but not just anyone can enter. Only those who have a key can get in, and then the two of you are IN love, and it’s perfect.
Okay, so it’s not quite perfect. As I’ve said before, love is not some flawless thing that you can set down on a shelf and admire. It’s a living, breathing thing that needs just as much attention as another person would. Being in love with someone means taking the time and the energy to understand what being in love with them means.
Being in love means compromising. It doesn’t matter how in sync the two of you are, there are always issues, some big and some small. Every single issue matters, because it’s often the ones you initially categorize as small that can tear you completely apart. That means spending time hashing things out early on. If you know you’re in love with them then it should be a labor of love to sit down and figure those things out.
I can love you like a brother, or a sister, and that’s swell, but when I’m in love with you it means we are in this together… until death do us part. Why beat around the bush? If the feeling is mutual, if the two of you are in the same place, why not make that ultimate compromise and join together in holy matrimony? Now, I know it’s a human construct, but the joining of two souls is precious. When you’re in love that should be the goal, right?
And this business about falling out of love, it’s all horseshit. You can’t fall out of love with someone. If you can separate yourself from them then you were never truly in love to begin with. Maybe you loved them, but you weren’t in love with them. Perhaps you were in love 
with the idea of them you created in your mind. That happens way too much in this day and age. We get these ideas in our heads of who people are supposed to be, and we see them through this haze… until we don’t anymore, and everything falls apart.
Being in love means communicating early and often. It means giving the other person more of yourself than you ever thought was possible before. It means being more vulnerable than you’ve ever been. And sometimes being in love means understanding that you might be the only one in that place. That’s hard to fathom, that we could fall in love with someone who doesn’t feel the same, and yet it happens all the time.
Sometimes being in love means letting go. Sometimes it means pressing down our feelings for the greater good. It’s lucky when the person you’re in love with is also in love with you. Hang on to that feeling. Work hard on that relationship, to keep those feelings at the surface and maintain their deep roots as well. Because it’s the most special, most important, and most spectacular feeling in the world.
Sam
Sam's Online Journal 