Love is Free(ing)

I watch the Vampire Diaries on Netflix.  What can I say?  I like supernatural stuff and I got hooked.  Don't judge.  Anyway, there was a scene where two of the characters have this long awaited passionate kiss because they have lived with unrequited, forbidden love and don't want anyone to know and blah blah blah.  The thing I realized while watching it was that I once thought of that as love.  That tension, that feeling that you want to touch that person and kiss that person and feel their body and breath in unison with yours. 

But it's not.

That is passion and lust and desire from a physical attraction fostered by a rush of emotion.  That is chemical.  This is not to say that it is not real and that love can not live in the cadre of feelings that are involved in the heart pounding kiss in the rain.  Love makes those moments better, as it does all moments, but it is not intrinsically love.  I think this is a message that young people get and are able to relate to, so they fall into the stream of consciousness that love is hot and heavy and is a rush of adrenaline.  I would imagine that they do relate so well because being young is like that, too. 
Alongside these powerful chemical reactions comes a feeling of possession.  How often do we say that he or she is "mine"?  I mean, there is a valentine heart that says "be mine".  Most of us know that loving a person does not give you ownership of them, some people don't and that is a totally different conversation.  But I digress.  We don't own the people we love.  We have no say in their lives except for what they give us. 
There is a quote that says that love is when another person's happiness is more important than anything else, even them being with you. 
I believe this. 
The hardest part of that kind of love is the attachment we develop with the people in our lives,especially those who become lovers and girlfriends and wives.  But think about it.  When a friend of yours gets a dream job and moves away, you are sad to see them go but are overjoyed at their opportunity for happiness.  That is love.  When a son or daughter grows up and moves out and on into the world there is a sense of loss, but there is so much joy and pride for them pursuing their happiness.  That is love. 
Love is not the clinging.  It is not the need.  It is not the sweaty nights (sometimes days), it is not the rush of emotion in your chest when you see them.  It is not chemical reaction in the brain.  It is not jealous or needy or selfish.  
Love is kindness and giving without need to receive.  Love is wishing only joy on another.  It is the realization that, even when you think you are at your worst, they are by your side holding you up.  Love is putting another first.  It is unselfish.  It is seeing the beauty in someone even when they feel that beauty has washed away with age.  Love is free and freeing.


Good wine is better with age, being allowed to breath, and when shared with friends.  So it is with love. 

"We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it."

Rainer Maria Rilke

"Lovers never surrender to each other, lovers simply surrender to love."

Osho