what is love?

seriously... love makes you stupid.

it makes you do things. stupid things. it makes you completely embarrass yourself. it gives you a euphoric feeling. you feel like a super hero, and that building... you can jump over that, no problem. it's the post intoxication with the love juice that sucks. yes... the love hangover.

i think i've done some of the most asinine things while high on love, or some form of it. on the upward flight of love, i went and got married. on the downward drop i threw myself in front of the car, while my husband tried to leave. i even remember begging and pleading with tears...don't go... don't go... i love you. pathetic. it's during those extremely painful parts of love that we... there i go assuming that i'm not alone on this... we can get pretty hysterical. we can get pretty desperate. it's not pretty.

love, isn't quite like the -i was drunk- excuse. and by the by, that excuse is freakin' lame... and yes, i have used it. so you look back and wonder... what inhabited my body? what had such a crazy hold on me? what was i thinking? let’s talk about definitions of love. i mean we, humanity, we have been trying to define it for a very long time. let’s start out with what others have said about love.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
-Corinthians 13:7-8-

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy. Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude; It is not self-seeking, nor easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongdoing. It does not delight in evil, But rejoices in the truth. It always protects, trusts, hopes, and preserves. There is nothing love cannot face; There is no limit to its faith, hope, and endurance. In a word, there are three things that last forever: Faith, hope, and love; But the greatest of them all is love.
- 1 Corinthians 13:4-7-

At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.
-Plato-

Love is strong yet delicate. It can be broken. To truly love is to understand this. To be in love is to respect this.
- Stephen Packer-

Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
-Aristotle-

When love is not madness, it is not love.
-Pedro Calderon de la Barca-

Love is the immortal flow of energy that nourishes, extends and preserves. Its eternal goal is life.
-Smiley Blanton-

Where there is great love, there are always wishes.
-Willa Cather-

Love is all we have, the only way that each can help the other.
-Euripides-

Love is my religion - I could die for it.
-John Keats-

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
-H. L. Mencken-

We loved with a love that was more than love.
-Edgar Allan Poe-

True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.
-Francois de La Rochefoucauld-

We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.
-Tom Robbins-

A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love.
-Friedrich Nietzsche-

As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.
-William Shakespeare-

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.
-George Bernard Shaw-

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
-Mother Teresa-

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage.
-Lao Tzu-

Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.
-Peter Ustinov-

A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears.
-Woodrow Wyatt-

A man reserves his true and deepest love not for the species of woman in whose company he finds himself electrified and enkindled, but for that one in whose company he may feel tenderly drowsy.
-George Jean Nathan-

The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the
depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.
-Jiddu Krishnamurti-

i think that there are about a million different forms of love. some say that love is truly knowing someone. when you allow yourself to be truly known... and that person will tolerate all your imperfections. by known, i mean - when you allow yourself to be completely vulnerable.

finding out about what others think of love, makes me wonder.. about whether or not i've done it.

have i loved selflessly?

could i ever be so unselfish?

i think that the more shit you have to get through, the bigger the reward. of course, you would need to get through it.. first. does anything that is easy to attain, taste as sweet as something you have had to work to attain? you can't compare a relationship of one year to a relationship of four years. then again, what if it's just easy to love someone? what if everyday with them seems to slide by and years pass and intimacy grows, love grows.

i asked my father what he thinks love is. he first said.. "do you want the story book answer?" and i said no daddy, give it to me straight. he started slowly.. 'it's when you deeply care for someone... there are so many kinds of love... well, honey.. you love Candice, you love David, you love Brennen, you love your mother..' i interjected 'i love you, daddy' then he said 'and i love you.. now think about your love for your sister, for Candice. what is your love for her?' i thought for a moment. then i said the first words that came to me..

"when i think of my love for her, i feel it, i feel it in my bones. i think that it's something that i can't imagine my life without. the love i have for her. i wouldn't be me without loving her.."

that's what i said about my little sister. she was born when i was eight. her crib was in my room, but she never slept in it. she slept in my bed from infancy till i moved out at sixteen. it started with just calming her to sleep as a baby. then when she was big enough for a bed, we had two twins. we would start out in separate beds, but i would always wake up with Candice next to me. eventually, my dad gave in and gave us a full bed. it was more comfy, the bigger she got. now my little sister who is all of almost nineteen... towers above me at least six foot.

she is a great person. she's compassionate, endearing, and empathetic. she's smart, directed, works hard. she's more considerate of others than i was at her age. she is wonderful. i love her. i don't know how to not love her. we have cried together. we have suffered through so much together. we have laughed together. we will both always be there for each other. there is no question. i guess that that is the way it is when you’re a tight little family. when you've had so many years together. when you know each others faults, and weaknesses. when you know how to help each other. when you take care of each other for so many years. and she's my sister. looks a little bit like me.. just in the face.. just her nose, her face is the same shape. i love that girl.

it's so easy to talk about that kind of love.

why is it so hard to describe the kind of love.. where i have said.. i'm in love with you.

how was i so fearless, letting elephants of my mouth like that?

how amazing, how beautiful, how tender, how painful... but, i wouldn't take any of it back.

risk.. let’s take some risks..

and right now. right now.. i'm heart broken.

pain in my bones. pain in my guts. when you can't love someone that loves you. when you realize that they can never really love you. never love you the way you deserve. when you realize that you don't bring out the best in each other. when you realize that he could never be your best friend. when you can't forgive. when you can't be vulnerable with them. when you have to look him in the eye and say.. i don't love you anymore.

divorce.. is only sadness.

ahh... but what is love?

my shiny new blog..

so here i am.. starting this up. creating this space for myself. and, because.. i don't really feel safe writing it all down elsewhere. we all have secrets. we all have things in our head we don't share with everyone. especially, when most of us compartmentalize our lives, our friends, even our thoughts. this is where i get to let it all out. unleash the demons... and the embarrasingly warm fuzzy things, too. it all belongs here. no one shall be turned away.

i do love to write. once, i thought.. yes, i'll be a writer. i'll tell the world my stories. i'll expose the best and the worst of life. i'll fuel our young minds the way my puttied mind was fired up. i was all sunshine and rainbows about it. you know, that youthful.. -i can do anything- feeling and mindset. this was before i discovered Henry Rollins.. and realized.. that he had written what I had written. my dream of writing had turned into just that.. a freakin' dream.

wait, aren't we all just stealing from everyone? aren't we all theives? hasn't everything been written? it was a simple line, a line that both Henry Rollins and myself had written... and a blow to the idea that my thoughts were merely my own. my words were mine. ownership.

i would need to be good, no i would need to be really real good. no, i would need to be completely original. hey, there hasn't been a me before. of course, who would really like to know what i know? read about my life, or stories about lives, or ideas? shit, i hope that i have an original thought to share. obviously, going to school for writing.. soon fell out the window. and "we all fall out the window..." to quote the Violent Femms who are probably quoting someone else.

or maybe.. i just threw some years on my back and figured.. i'm not good enough at it to really do it. ... well, whatever it was. fuck it.

there is nothing like actually getting started. i will only write for myself. i will only write for fun. i won't be trying to be good at it. i won't be writing for an audience. i'll just be getting things out of my head. i won't worry about grammar or spelling errors. basically.. i will let my thoughts flow without filter. here is to my first foot print in this direction. so far it feels good.