Perspective

So I had an interesting conversation with a friend today. I verbalized the way I view certain things about love; not something I do very often. It's not that I don't want to, it's just not something I think about consciously communicating about. Sometimes I just think what I think about things and don't wonder about if it's the way other people see it. Not that I'm not interested in the way they see it - I'm always interested in what people have to say - but I don't think my point of view would be all that interesting to them.

It started off talking about who falls in to the category of "my type." I've thought about this before, not so much recently, but in the past because I've listened to friends use the phrase in describing others. And I came to the conclusion that I don't have one. Everyone I've liked, or loved, or dated, has been totally different from all the others. Sure, anyone can find and draw a similarity between almost any two people, and that is no exception in my life. But in the big picture...nobody has ever "fit" into a single stereotype, or a single role. I just like who I like, and I love who I love; I don't pinpoint certain things about them that I love. If I love someone, it's quite simple to me. I just love them. And I think that is enough.

From there we ended up talking about how my perception of love has changed over the years. As I grow up, my idea of love matures and develops with me - the love I claimed to have felt for someone in the 8th grade is not what I would consider love by my standards today. The love that I felt in high school is even drifting farther and farther away from my current definition. I do not doubt that I loved those people then, I loved them in whatever way I knew how at the time. I think thats what everyone does. It's easy to excuse your feelings as, "Oh I thought I loved him, but now I know better." You only know better because you have grown up and learned, but at the time, you did love him in whatever way it was you knew how to love.

So stemming off of that, my general opinion of marriage, at least in the past year or so, has been centered around this maturation of perceptions and attitudes and understandings. When you get married to someone, you are in love with them at that moment in the way that you know how to at that time. Staying with them means that, despite of all these changes, you still love them. It's like, the connection you feel with the person you're serious in a life-time-sort-of-way about, is so powerful, it surpasses the changing definitions of love you encounter through-out the rest of your life with that person. Isn't that crazy? Some of this might be underdeveloped still, in a conversational manner, but just the thought of it is so large that it's hard to comprehend it all at once.

That is why I believe love is unconditional. Generally, unconditional love is associated with accepting another person despite their flaws, quirks, mistakes, and oddities because of the love you feel for them. That is all very true, but I think that is only an aspect of unconditional love. It also means that you are willing and able to love this other person regardless of your own condition, including your changing attitudes and perceptions. If you can love another person even as you are experiencing changes in yourself, I think that is what completes this idea of unconditional love.

So, that's where my mind is tonight. I'm not so sure anyone else even wants to hear all that, which is why I share it on here because I know it's relatively unknown. I just want to have it written out, you know, to remind myself every once in a while, or to allow myself to think a little harder about certain aspects. Or even just so a few years down the road, I can remember how I thought when I was 20...and see how much, or how little, I've changed.