Love...What is this Eluding Feeling?

"Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it...It really is worth fighting for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more." Erica Jong

Before we speak about relationships there are few things we have to understand about it and they are imperative when a relationship is on the horizon.

Love is one of them. It is after all the reason we all go into a relationship. Many other things are also wanted on a relationship such as understanding, to be accepted, respected, cherished but to be love is the main goal.

The large majority of us wants to find that extraordinary someone, that person who will make our dreams come true. Someone who will be, finally, the reason why we were born. So let's talk a little about it and set the right expectations about it.

The potential of finding love gives us the courage to get into this adventure that can bring us to the heights of heaven or break our heart and send us into hell for a while.
What is love? Does anyone has the answer for this question at all?

Centuries have passed by, many people have loved the true love and many have just dreamed of it. I do not believe anyone can give love a 'proper' definition since it varies from being to being, culture to culture, it varies in form, shape and intensity.

Psychology portraits love as a cognitive phenomenon with a social cause. It is said to have three components in the book of psychology: Intimacy, Commitment and Passion.

The Dictionary describes LOVE as to like with great intensity. To enjoy very much, take great pleasure in. Very strong liking and affection. Strong enjoyment or pleasure. An enduring person.

Love has many definitions, nevertheless it's always related to something magnificent. Something that makes everything else worth.

"...if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing..." 1 Corinthians 13

Love is a journey of two people in search of the perfect balance of respect, acceptance, passion, intimacy and compatibility.

To some, love is a strong friendship, for others love is like luck, that you have or don't have. To others it is something worth to search to the end of the world to find that rare magic that is believed to make live worth living. Yet to some others, love is something that you can buy with money. To some it justifies going to the absurd of killing others. To others it's a fable that's told to little kids to make them fall sleep and have nice dreams.

Whatever the 'right definition or way to feel it might be' love along with happiness has always been the holly grail of human history.

We have heard many poems, music and ways to describe love.

"...Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails...And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love..." 1 Corinthians 13

Love bonds and connects people in a strong union of trust, intimacy and interdependence while respecting each other's own independence, being, dreams and desires. It makes a relationship whole and comforts the soul.

There are many different types of love:

Probably the strongest one is the love of a mother and her child. An example of unconditional love and there is no way it can be measured. The majority of mothers will die to protect her child. Nothing in the whole wide world is more important to her not even her own life.

Romantic love is deep, intense and ideally never-ending. Is shared on an intimate, trusted and sexual relationship.

Platonic, familiar, religious and friendship loves are also sign of great affection. Its meaning will change with different relations.

Nonetheless throughout history and in our current days love have been associate to many instances of hatred, betrayal and brutality in relationships. Brothers against brothers, siblings enmity, spouses betrayal, sons and daughters killing their parents, parents killing and being disloyal to their own kids and so much more we see every day when we tune onto the news.

Unfortunately all those events are a part of our current reality and has been part of our history for centuries. They do happen and have always happened, it however has nothing to do with love but with the lack and understanding of it.

Not rarely, faulty parties on these crimes use the word love as an excuse to commit such crimes, maybe because in their minds makes more sense than just admit that they have no love, nor respect for others not to themselves. Or maybe because using the pretense that such acts were committed in name of love, will, somehow, make them more human, or more forgiving, or more acceptable. Or maybe because they have no knowledge of what love is.

People who commit crimes in name of love have lost love, have replaced it with control, ownership, possession and ironically don't understand the meaning of love all together. Perhaps they don't comprehend that love is freedom, love is not egotistical, love is to respect the other person's wishes even if their wishes are to be apart from you, love is to have the other's happiness and well-being in mind above your own.

People blame others for their own mistakes and faults. Instead of assuming responsibility, forgiving and learning from their mistakes they just go on cultivating hate amongst themselves.

Love has bewilder many of the greatest thinkers in our history. What is this inexplicable feeling idea that can be felt but can't be explained?

"Love is a feeling that can't be described. It has to be experienced to be understood. It's like trying to describe the feeling one have when in front of the wide open ocean to someone who has never lived outside the prairies." N. Cardoso

Love has always been fundamental on inspiring many creative arts such as music, poetry, paintings, sculptures, and literature. Love has been the reason for many historic and epic acts of self-sacrifice.

There is always a necessity to remind ourselves about the need to understand, forgive and love each other, reminding always that nobody's perfect and there will always be someone who knows more than we do.

The box bought idea portrayed by TV, movies and magazines that love comes with the image of success, picture perfect life, where joy, laughter and a life filled with thrilling moments. Where an everlasting happiness - where one partner can read the other's thoughts and act before being asked - is a far cry image from the reality of day after day. It transmits the wrongful idea that if love doesn't come in this format it means we have not found love at all.

Being together with someone must include joy, laughter and happiness but also includes sharing sorrow, difficulties, learning, yearning, tears, disappointments and pain. It requires one to provide the other with space to grow and be themselves and at the same time being there for each other's needs.

The bottom line is: loving each other and striving for a happy relationship requires work, dedication, prioritizing the relationship and each other.

A happy relationship doesn't happen just for sheer luck. It has to be cultivated like a little seed before it can bloom into beautiful and colorful flower and produce its fruits.

Loving someone might also mean letting them go. Like a mother who after so much dedication has to let her child go on their own merry way. Sometimes romantic love brings us to that path as well.

Two people might just grow apart and there will be a need to respect and accept that and let the other one go and find our own path alone and start again.

Love can also lead to a broken heart, which is one thought we don't like or want to have when falling in love.

A friend of mine used to say: "love stories always ends at the wedding party..." no one wants to talk about what comes after; the routine, the day-to-day activities, the learning process, the disagreements, the disappointments, the work it takes to keep love blooming, day after day, month after month, year after year. The surprise people experience when the pink-colored glasses are removed and the crude and not so glamorous nor romantic routine settles in.

I believe that part of the shock comes from the fact that it's hard to accept that life can go back to its normality after such an amazing experience.

It's hard to accept that love can die if not tendered to. That love nor a piece of paper with signatures on it alone are not enough to keep two people together if they do not work on all the other little things, besides love, that are required to keep a relationship fresh, renewed, excitable. If not tendered, that love that has brought you to the top of the world will fall into the boredom and the pair will become unfamiliar to each other. They will, without a question, grow apart, even if there is a false impression of peace and harmony.

Some people are more patient than others, or have more courage or less courage (as you wish) than others and some relationships might last longer than others but the result is always the same if the fundamentals are missing - if not a divorce on the horizon, two lonely, scared and unhappy people living a pretending life together as couple or roommates watching life passing them by - instead of a life with a partner that completes the scenery we can imprison ourselves into a life of mediocrity and unsatisfying days, months and years because we are afraid of either leaving, being left or being alone.

So why it's so important to us humans to find this thing called love? To endure the bumps and go through the painful possibility of a broken heart or to lose everything if this feeling is not tendered and preserved for?

I believe it has to do with the fact that love is a supreme feeling and the belief that loving and being loved is well worth prize, the risk of pain that might come with it. The Brazilian composer Vinicios de Moraes used to sing:

'....let love be eternal as long as it last...'

Love for one month or love for a whole life, the important thing is to love.

People want many different things in life: a family, a big house, a little house, husband and kids, lots of money, enough money, fame, power, etc, but the one common occurrence is that everybody, without exception NEED to be loved. Be loved for who we are, be loved and accepted with our goods, bad and ugly details.

Why so many times we hear about a love story going bad rather than ones with a happy ending?

Maybe it's because too much expectation in love itself is created. We imagine that love will be a magically transform everything, us, our partner and the rest of the world. We believe that love is enough to keep two people together. Nothing else is necessary but love.

"Two may talk together under the same roof for many years, yet never really meet; and two others at first speech are old friends." Mary Catherwood

I myself, have been in situations where a nagging voice inside would tell me that he didn't have what it took, that he was never strong enough to face crisis and overcome them, to stand up for me, to fight and keep me by his side, yet my romantic side always believed that somehow, someday, my love for him would make him somehow different. It's funny now to look back and see how many times have we expected the object of our affection to be strong enough to stand up for our love? Just to find out that they are who they are - that our love didn't make them someone else - if they cannot stand up for themselves how can we expect them to stand up for us or anyone else for that matter?

Loosing someone we love is a pain beyond description. We'll wonder why it happened, not unusual we'll wonder what have we done wrong. We'll feel like we'll never love again and life, as we know it, has ended.

We were trained to believe that we'll love once and only once. Some people might have one love for their entire life but the majority of us, thanks to the heavens, will love more than once in our lifetime.

The love we swear to keep forever when we are young and naive is usually promised by someone different than the person most of us will turn out to be with time. We will become someone new, our partner will also changed and not too rare the two people who once vowed to love each other until 'death do us part' are not the same people 10 years after that promise. If they follow the normal path of life, they will evolve, they will change their priorities, their dreams, their urgencies, their needs, their desires and unfortunately, not too unusual, the young and naive couple, that once where so in love, find that they grew apart.

Love has this power of making us believe that all is possible, that we can fly and be together above all the obstacles, that we'll never change, that our partner will never change, that all will remain the same as it was on that 'special moment when Love was promised', that 'this new life' will be an exciting adventure worth of a best seller. We dream that nothing will ever change, we want to believe that love gives us the power to freeze the world, to prevent time from ticking, to stop the daily routine of our mundane life, struggles and to avoid problems and the crude reality of life itself to interfere.

Each person reacts different to this magic feeling. Love alone does not have the power to change the world. Some people love the freedom and courage that comes along with loving someone - the feeling that we can be better than we have ever imagine, that we have the power to be so much more.

This power that makes the smile come to our lips when no one is looking or talking to us - the memories of 'us' comes rushing and breaks the monotony of a working day, when we feel the blood rushing warm and fast through our veins just with anticipation, the feeling that makes the sky more blue, the perfume of flowers stronger, that gives us wings and makes us dare to dream, dare to fly.

Love do give us the strength to take action and determination to make ourselves better and to be deserving of this wonderful feeling.

However there are others, to whom this feeling completely paralyzes them. Scared by the fact that usually it can't be controlled, by the fact that our heart have its owns ideas and movements when love comes along. Some are so afraid that they rather hide their heads on the sand in hopes that it will disappear - some are so frightened by it that they'll settle for the comfort and routine they know and control rather than daring to let love into their lives.

And finally there are those who are just too selfish to be able to love anybody but themselves. Love is after all a relationship between two or more people - Love has the other person's best interest in mind - not the typical idea of 'what is in for me' that many look for in today's individualistic, immediate satisfaction and selfish world we live.

Love can transform a person but this person has to be open and willing to be transformed. Loving someone is being able to see this person without their masks and still love them for who they are, not for what you want and hope them to be.

Nobody is perfect. We all have our pros and cons. Love must make us want to be better than we have ever thought possible in the benefit and happiness of ourselves and our loved ones.

I could go on and on talking about love since it is my favorite subject except that there are other things to talk about and time is short, so let's move on.

Another issue we have to address before getting into a relationship are unresolved issues.

N. Cardoso