Love Wounds...

LOVE~ (by definition)In English, the word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure ("I loved that meal") to intense interpersonal attraction ("I love my partner"). "Love" can also refer specifically to the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love, to the sexual love of eros (cf. Greek words for love), to the emotional closeness of familial love, or to the platonic love that defines friendship,[5] to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love. [6] This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even compared to other emotional states.(wikipedia)

Love for me is both simple and difficult to define. It's a word I use often; telling my family and friends I love them every chance I get. I use it to describe how I feel about moments in time, things I truly enjoy, etc. I find that I'm a big sentimental sap and am oozing with love to give. However, I'm a raging contradiction when it comes to becoming vulnerable and opening my heart to falling in love!

I've been in love once. It seems like forever ago and I was SO young when that whirlwind all started. 16 to be exact! I remember how exciting it all was in the beginning. The teenage infatuation that grew into love. For me it was very real and it lasted for 6 years. I gave him everything...my whole heart and soul and was desperate to make it work. But, it didn't and I'm very thankful for it now. I've had many great experiences and learned so much about myself since we parted ways. I'm certain that if we would have stayed together we would have made each other miserable...we did a great job of that towards the end!

The breakup was painful....gut wrenchingly painful. Something I knew I had to do. We couldn't continue on the path we were on. We deserved better than what we were giving to each other. But, knowing that reality didn't make it easy. How can you love someone so much and not fight to make it work? How can you give so much of your time and YOURSELF to someone else and just end it? Did I love him more than he loved me? If so, how could I be so stupid for not figuring it out sooner to save myself from the heartache? Falling out of love sucks!

How do people jump in and out of love like it's NOTHING!?! This is something I often ask myself. I've only done it once and once was enough to keep my heart guarded like Fort Knox! I'm not saying that that is a good thing...like I said earlier I'm a raging contradiction when it comes to love. But, seriously how do people fall in love so easily? One minute Susie loves Bobby so much that she thinks HE is the one. A month later he is out of the picture and she's daydreaming of her wedding with Jimmy!!! That is just foreign to me!

During my single years I've dated a good handful of men. Most of the time, the guy I would date would start to really like me and I would start to freak out. I remember saying to one guy I dated, "Why do you like me? I'm a bitch to you!" TRUE STORY!! I really was awful to him, but he made me feel suffocated and it felt like too much too fast. Obviously I had to end that one. It's like when I can start to feel real emotions coming into play I want to jump ship. It's my knee jerk reaction to the vulnerability of falling in love.

I did have one relationship recently where I didn't react so violently to emotions. I actually started to chip away at my walls and let him in! This was a huge step for me, but I had a feeling it was destined for failure. Karma...for all the times I pushed people away?! That and he had just ended a relationship with the woman he thought he wanted to MARRY 2 months earlier!!! We lasted for a good 6 months (my second longest relationship...first being 6 YEARS)and I enjoyed my time with him. He was a very good man and I will always want the best for him, but I was no longer enjoying helping him mend his broken heart. Or being so understanding of his situation that I wasn't expecting more out of OUR situation! That ending was very painful for me as well! I wasn't in love with him, but I knew my feelings were growing and I could have fallen in love, IF I were to allow myself to.

It's hard for me to not build those walls back up, but I'm trying my hardest not to! I would like to experience the intoxicating emotions of love again. I'm positive that falling in love in your late twenties is a hell of a lot different than falling in love in your teens! I just need to work on letting people in and NOT doing everything possible to push them away (I even did this with Mr. Brokenhearted...I'm sure he would tell you I wasn't very emotionally open).

I will never be that girl that just falls in and out of love with ease. I will not tell someone I LOVE them unless I sincerely MEAN it! BUT, from this point forward I'm going to be more open minded to it. As terrified as I am about experiencing another broken heart....I'm even more terrified of never allowing myself the chance to fall in love again!

So here's to learning from past love wounds and keeping an open heart...