What is Love?

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

I am not sure that I agree with this statement… Sometimes I don’t feel patient with the people that I love, sometimes I feel proud and I want to shout it from the rooftops… Sometimes I do keep record of wrongs… I don’t always trust t he ones that I love. In saying this… We all experience every emotion with our children and our significant others maybe even our best friends…. It doesn’t mean we are awful. It means we are human and we all feel. There are times that I feel jealousy and envy. I am not proud of these emotions, but they occur and I think sometimes there is this expectation put on LOVE if you will, by society.

We are read these fairy tales and we see these perfect love stories or even shown these sweet pictures of these perfect families… seeing these movies or hearing these stories is all fabulous until we start comparing that to our lives… This is even a lot more present with social media. We all post these filtered pictures of our lives, and not very often do we post the realities…

The reality is that no one is happy all the time! No one leads an exciting life all the time! No one has perfect kids, No one has a perfectly clean house! No one has the perfect relationship free from arguments or feelings of sadness. I think it’s important to talk about this because RELATIONSHIPS are HARD!! That means being a parent is hard! Being a partner is hard! Being a friend is Hard. Being anything to anyone is hard!

From my perspective… Love is a choice!

We have to choose to make a conscious decision each and every single day to love those that are in our lives. Whether that is our children or significant others. We have to accept that we all have a different fairy tale. For some the fairy tale is filled with fancy clothes and dinner parties with huge vacations. For some the fairy tale is filled with a dirt road and a pick up truck… I’m just saying that we have to understand that the books that are read to us from the time we are little aren’t what a fairy tale looks like in real life. Maybe your prince charming is going to come rolling in on a surf board, maybe on a tractor… maybe your princess will be wearing a fancy dress, but maybe just maybe she will be wearing blue jeans.

I think it is also important to understand that parenting isn’t always going to look like the perfectly airbrushed picture of the Mother holding the sweet sleeping newborn. Our children will test every last nerve that we have. We will have feelings of happy and sad and everything in between. We will have feelings of being proud and completely mortified of our children’s actions. We will want to hug them and kick them at the same time. Any parent that says that they never experienced any of the negative thoughts they are lying and you shouldn’t be friends with them. All of those feelings are part of loving your child. Loving that child is a choice!!! It’s not always easy, but making that choice is being a parent. Understand that giving birth or contributing the sperm doesn’t make you a parent… Any one can do that. Choosing to love that child and accept that your “fairy tale” with that child will be beautiful on some days and not so pretty on others, but accepting it on all days. That my friends is LOVE.

You have to be open to it. Love is understanding that you are not always going to like that person whether is is your child or your partner in life. You are not always going to agree with this person. Love means that they will drive you absolutely crazy! You will feel every emotion and feeling. You will feel frustrated on some days, confused, and hurt on others. Some days you will feel completely happy and filled with bliss. Some days will be smooth sailing and others will be huge storm clouds… Some might even be huge storms causing devastation. There will be other days completely filled with sunshine and rainbows… It’s on these days that makes the not so bright days worth it. Loving someone does NOT mean that things will be perfect. Love is working together. Love is compromising. Love is teamwork. Love is accepting one another for who they are Not who you want them to be. Love is changing with someone. Love is learning. Love is crying and laughing. Love is experiencing life together. Love is taking the challenge daily.