L is for loose ends.

[disclaimer: the transitions between these sections are slim, the connection between them sparse, the relation between the beginning and the end... minimal. but all touch on love. so happy hallmark holiday. i hope you found something real today besides cheesy movies and kisses and candy hearts]

someday (maybe) they will ask me who you were and i will tell them. they will ask about my first love (or almost love) and i will tell them. by then, the answer will be approached with a smile, for the years will have erased all the lies. all the tears. all the memories of betrayal and abandoned trust. for even now, only a few years later, i have started to forget how you wrecked me. how you rendered me broken and needing attention. how the mere thought of speaking to you used to make my stomach turn, literally near sickness. how i never thought i would forgive you. but all this has begun to pass away because i do... forgive you. and so, years from now when my children ask me about my first love i will tell them about you. the laughter, and the tears, all rolled into deep conversations in the moonlight - taking walks in the summer air. or how we could say nothing and it would be perfect. how you knew me. how you made me want to forget about everything and simply be, with you. someone once said, love is friendship set on fire. maybe, they were right... that the best relationships grow out of friendships (if we had given it an honest try). still, i will tell my children that i loved you. because i did - on some level.

and now i believe that i am cursed, developing feelings for the "best friends" in my life. and maybe not accurately, but at least considering the possibilities that could arise. maybe, i want to fall in love with my best friend. for real this time. looking back on the men whom i have liked over the years, i mean - really liked, i find almost all of them were friends first. ample time spent with others, mutual gatherings, and late nights. or time spent alone, completely uninhibited by sexual undertones or desires. innocence and honesty. light-hearted conversations, or sometimes deep. there was no pressure. no need to entertain the other, or draw them in. we just were - the way we were supposed to be, joined by friendship and nothing more, our minds simply delighting in the simplicity of company. until one day it changes. or at least, you think it changes. or perhaps, people try and change it for you. until you start to believe it, the possibility of something more, something deeper. and suddenly you wake up one morning and realize that you are screwed. completely and utterly screwed. because you have an amazing best friend. and one day you're either going to fall for that person, or you're going to lose him or her to someone he or she has fallen for, or you will fall for someone and leave your best friend behind. and the idea is scary. because somewhere along the line that person stopped being just a common friend and became the bearer of your deepest secrets, the knower of your thoughts, the reader of your actions. at times, he or she knows you better than you know yourself and it's something you never want to lose. but you will. you must. unless you both come to mutual realization that there is more beneath the surface, and in that case... it could ruin your friendship.

love is about taking risks. love is about not being afraid to tell the truth. love is loving unconditionally, wholeheartedly, with patience, with passion, with persistance. love is more than just a feeling, love is a choice. a choice that you have to make every day, for the rest of your life, if you choose to make it. it is not a one time vow. it is not a summer fling. love passes only if you let, only if you watch it go. love is about fighting. love is about caring more about someone else than for yourself. love is about laying down your life. love comes when you least expect it (or at least that is what i've been told). there is not an equation. there is not a formula for knowing what it is or when it finds you. it can make your heart beat fast or it can bring you peace. love is slowing dying every minute you're away from each other and then bursting into flames when you meet again. love is friendship set on fire. love is more than a holiday in february. love is more than cheesy movies and corny pick-up lines. love is more than "almost". love is greater than sunshine. love is not sex. love is not disposable. love is not ordinary. love is not explainable. love is not just a word.

i have never been "in love". sometimes i believe i have come close. sometimes i believe in the possiblity of getting close again - moving from "i love you" to "i'm in love with you". sometimes i dream about the same guy for multiple nights in a row and wake up thinking it must mean something. i think of what could be. i think of how i feel about this guy, or that. sometimes i really think i truly care about someone in my life. other days i simply pray for my future husband. other times i simply ask God for patience to keep waiting, i ask Him for love. and He answers: "This is Love. That God loved us and sent His son to be the payment for our sins... If we love each other, God lives in us, and His love is perfected in us." i know i can love God more. i need to love God more. i want to love God more. He has blessed me with an unconditional love, and i often think i need to appreciate that before i can truly love someone else. all i know for sure is this - God's love is amazing and perfect and unlike any earthly love will ever be. i'm still waiting for my earthly prince, but God has me wrapped up in His arms.