True Love As I Know It

The word "love" is thrown about like confetti. When it comes to true love, you've either had it or you haven't. People search in vain, thinking it will fall within a set of rigid criteria. It doesn't work that way and could be standing right in front of them and they'd never know it. Lust demands "type." Love seeks a beautiful spirit.

True love knows no age or type. It could care less about ethnicity, place of birth or social status. True love could show up in a new Mercedes or carrying a bicycle with one wheel. It may be a work in progress, just getting started or already there. True love knows exactly where to massage you, and where not to touch because it tickles. It could be goofy looking or drop-dead gorgeous.

True love is your best friend, your partner in crime, your hero. True love will challenge you, teach you and encourage you. It will be there to nurse you when you're sick, talk you down when you're crazy and celebrate life's sweetest victories. It will never pick you apart. It knows your flaws and loves you anyway. True love appreciates your idiosyncrasies and learns your life story. It knows your deepest and darkest, taking them to the grave.

For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. True love sees a few wrinkles and grey hairs as wisdom and testament to time you've spent together. But like a garden, it must be watered and fertilized regularly, or it withers and dies. But true love doesn't die easily. At the worst, it withers and leaves but a seed. 

People confuse lust and love, thinking that hot, tingly nasty parts announces its arrival. The genuine article does come on like a freight train...but it knows that romance waxes and wane over the years. To maintain the fervor of initial lust would be impossible and frankly exhausting. True love is the glue that will hold you together. Lust thrives on "new and exciting," vanishing in an instant once it wears off. Lust by itself, if left unchecked, will know many...but spend many nights alone. Occasionally, if a person is open and willing, love blooms in its place, but love sometimes appears when a person is ready and doesn't know it.

True love is the most precious, elusive gift we can ever receive. You must keep a vigilant watch over it for those who do not have it don't want you to have it either. Those who know the least about love seem to dispense the most advice about it. Jealousy will sabotage love, picking it apart, shining the bright light of scrutiny on its imperfections. Healthy love turns a deaf ear. Addiction is love's greatest enemy, slaughtering many a true heart, however many loves are healed from this monster. No love is perfect, and no two are alike. Serial monogamy and lust are temporary, each haughtily displaying their respective prizes. True love offers an ease and comfort like nothing else, sometimes a roller coaster but always ending up in the same placid pool. 

"Comes only once that kind of love, that kind of fever dance."--Fleetwood Mac