Close up of Bernini's sculpture, The Rape of Proserpina
Love is a strange bird. It sets off so many different emotions, it is nearly indefinable yet it is this basic human thing. We all love, or have the capacity to love. We all crave love.
On Friday, Susan talked about that all important first kiss. Sadly, it turns out that many of us didn’t have a good experience with our first kiss. Actually, I’m not surprised. Good kissing, well, it’s a skill, isn’t it? Like any skill, one must learn. Sure a lucky few drop right into it with no problem. But most of us need time. Which is why it is our second, fourth, or tenth kiss that really knocked our socks off. :)
Since it is Valentines Day, I thought I’d expand on Susan’s most excellent post. So what of love? Unlike kissing, it isn’t a skill that we need to learn. Or is it?
For those of you who have found love, did you know it when you saw it? How did you know that it was love?
For me, he was simply the person I wanted to be with above all others. When I realized that, it left me kind of breathless, and just a little bit freaked.
So what about you? Did love sneak up on you? Or did it hit you like a lightning bolt?
Love just hit me. The moment I saw him walking towards me, the moment he sat down across from me, I knew that I would be sitting a across from, beside, or somewhere in the vincinty of this man for the rest of my life. And so here we are almost 8 years together, almost 5 years married and the most beautiful two year old in the world to show for it. Happy Valentine's Day!
ReplyDeletehttp://thewritersdeclaration.blogspot.com/
Very sigh worthy, Becca. :)
ReplyDeleteHi, Kristne, and Susan, Rachel, Claire, and Jennifer.
ReplyDeleteI hopped over from the crusaders list... Nice to meet all of you. I like your concept and have followed you ladies.
As for your question, Kristen, I have always been a romantic fool and fell hard every time. It never hit me like bricks only afterwards when it ended.
Have a great V-DAY!
Michael
Hi Michael.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I don't want to live in a world void of romantic fools. Such fools for love give us all hope. And you bring up a great point. Love can be wonderfully heady when you're falling, but nothing is worse than the end of it.
Thanks for stopping by!
I've had some intense instant attractions, but real love is more like the wearing in of a pair of shoes, where FINALLY they exactly fit and you wouldn't give them up for anything. It's quite forever for me, considering what a cynic I am about it.
ReplyDeleteI saw him with another girl at a football game and wondered how she caught such a gorgeous guy. Then in January, I found him by the map of Africa in a PoliSci class. ; ) He was just he one for me and, thankfully, I'm the one for him. We've been together ever since and married for 33 and a half years. ; ) Thanks for the memories.
ReplyDeleteWell, I pretty much knew from the minute we first met (at our part-time jobs in our local supermarket, when I was sixteen and he was nineteen) that there was something special between us. Only problem was the not-so-special thing between us - his girlfriend. >:-(
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, we became good friends, and couple of years on, we found ourselves unattached at the same time ... and the rest is history.
We're still together, twenty-four years after we first met; that gut instinct of mine worked pretty damn well!
When I met DH, by chance through a friend (I almost refused the invitation to go out that night!), one of the first things we said to each other was "hey, I'm leaving for Turkey in a month" and "oh yea? I'm leaving for England!"
ReplyDeleteI was very happy when we met up on the other side of the pond...
I've had some pretty rapid attractions, but love is an everyday effort. After years, it's possible to take familiar people for granted, so we lay-on a steady stream of favors and appreciation. Romance is planned, then flying by the seat of the pants!
ReplyDeleteI guess we knew fairly soon that it was true love. Six months after meeting we were engaged, and six months after that we were married. Fourteen years, two kids, a dog, six birds, and a mortgage later and we're still together. :)
ReplyDelete(I love that photo of Bernini's sculpture. His work is amazing - it looks like living flesh, not stone. Simply amazing.)
It snuck up on me and him both- hit us out of the blue. :)
ReplyDelete@Zan Marie - Same him at a game... oh nice. And 33 years. Congrats on that. :)
ReplyDelete@Hart -- yeah, a good pair of shoes are irreplaceable. ;)
@Rachel --yeah, I'd say you got some good instincts. So, were you check out buddies? (g)
@Deniz -- Cool that you met up in Europe too.
@Will -- you're right, you can't take love or people for granted. It always takes work.
@Susan -- that's pretty quick! And yet here you are, still together. (s) Isn't that Bernini sculpture incredible? It moves me every time I see it. He's one of my favorites.
@Summer -- I always thought it'd be nice to be hit with love out of the blue.
I'd have to say it hit me hard. I saw him walking across the campus quad all dark and brooding and thought...whoa!
ReplyDelete18 years later, he's my hubby still. =)
Edge of Your Seat Romance
It was like being hit in the head with a frying pan!
ReplyDeleteHello fellow crusader!
You're going to have to call me a cynic on this one, believe it or not (from a girl who met her true love at 17, and is still with (and married) to him 12 years later). I think love is part thunder and lightning, part deliberate effort.
ReplyDeleteWhen I met my DH, both of us standing outside the wrong classroom for our first ever university class, I was struck by his height and his stunning eye colour, but I can't say I understood that this moment was the one that would change my life forever. In fact, when he asked me out a couple of weeks later, I turned him down.
But a couple of months after that, when he hunted down a rare LP from my favourite band as a birthday present for me, I realised just how well he knew me, and like tumbling dominoes I suddenly understood that he was integral to every part of my life, and I couldn't do without him.
I ate humble pie and asked him out, and here we all are today :) Nonetheless, I think love takes effort, every day. Complacency is too easy to come by, and indifference is a dangerous thing...
My experience is very similar to Claire's I have to say (met at 17, married for thirteen years now). The L word kinda crept up on me, as we were together for several years before getting married.
ReplyDeleteHey, even if you DO get hit by the proverbial lightning bolt, most people would admit that a good relationship still takes work over many years if it is to last...
BTW Kristen we are in the same Crusade Group so I just wanted to say hi. :-)