day 5:

{your definition of love}

ok, here we go.

i. have. a strict. take on love.

example: i have never been in love before. i'm well aware of that. yes, i've felt a lot for a person before. really great stuff that just a makes you smile. and makes you always want to be around them. and their laugh makes you laugh. and they can make you happy by doing the simplest things. and your stomach does crazy back-flips when you see them.

but no. i wasn't in love.

there's many different kinds of love, honestly. it's not that i've never loved, just that i've never been in love before.

i know i love my family. undoubtedly. and when i say to my friends, "i love you!", yes, in some ways i do. it's a different kind of love, though - different even from my family love. because i'm sorry friends: i love my family, i love you.

i would probably lay down on train tracks for some of my siblings. i don't know if i'd do that for my friends though. maybe! - who knows. hopefully i'll never be put in that situation.

but i'm pretty sure the kind of love this prompt is talking about, the kind of love that everyone talks about... well, that's different.

i therefore introduce the definition of love, brought to you by Anna's Life Dictionary:

love [luhv] noun, verb, loved, lov·ing. 1. when you care more for a person than you do for yourself.

i am not saying the edward-bella love:
"ohmygosh, ohmygosh, ohmygosh! i hate myself. so much. i love you more. so i'm rejecting everything i am as a human being and becoming a vampire because i looooove you moooore."

uh, no.

i'm taking, you are so concerned with this other person, so incredibly in love with everything about them, you would do anything for them. their happiness is so important to you, you are willing to put your wants behind you in order to fulfill their wants.

that's what makes a marriage work, i think. caring more about the other person. if both parties are doing that, then it's a perfect balance. it's when we become selfish that it starts to fail.

most of what i've just said so far comes from a seminary teacher. he got a ph.d. in marriage and family relations. wrote a dissertation on it.

so i think he knows what he's talking about.

he interviewed 30 couples to better understand the concept of love and what the key to a successful marriage is. the results? the only ones that worked completely were the ones where both cared more about the other. some marriages that had problems faced one spouse caring more about the other, and the other not, and some faced both caring more about themselves.

love is selfless.

i believe that.


alright. setting that aside, and keeping it in mind for a moment, let's look at a couple other things.

1. i believe you can be in love more than once.
2. because we as human beings are constantly growing and changing, our ability to love does as well.
---example: Woman and man begin to date. After a few months, man says to woman, "I love you." She thinks about it, and replies "I love you, too." And she does. A few months later, they break up due to the realization that marriage isn't the right thing for them. Fast forward a year. Woman meets man2. After a suitable time, they tell each other they love each other. This is true, because they do. The woman then says "I never really loved man. My feelings for man are nothing compared to what they are for man2." Wait a second. True?...False, I think. She did love man. Because everything she knew at that time in her life (when she was dating man), everything she had ever experienced told her that yes, she loved him. It was just a different kind of love. She changed, grew, and learned throughout these experiences. By the time she met man2, her capacity to love had grown.
3. the phrase "I love you" should not be thrown around lightly.
4. especially in a relationship.
5. especially especially in a high school relationship.

6. everyone has a different view/perspective of what love is. here's a picture to demonstrate this:

So. Let's say the boy's feeling level reaches that line on his scale. The line labeled "love". And the girl's feeling might be exactly at the same level. So she might be kinda doubtful when he says he loves her. But her idea of love is just different. She considers love to be a little higher level.

There's nothing wrong with either. Just because the boy's idea of love is lower doesn't mean his feeling level is less. Oui?

Okay. I'm getting sick of this post. So I'm done for now.

No, this isn't everything I have to say on the subject of love.

Yes, I totally have no right or experience to say this.


I can't wait to be in love.