Love. Such a big idea and such a passionate feeling. As with everything, it’s vastly unique to personal situations and context. But I can do my best to speak to my own experiences and the experiences of others I’ve met along the way. It kinda all comes back to “to each their own.” We spend a lot of time judging how others’ relationships are supposed to look or work, but the truth is just like everything else, each relationship is unique. We can’t expect each person to be an individual and then expect the same thing (in this case type of relationship) to work for all of them right?? (Much like in the classroom with teaching). It gets tricky when you don’t know what is right for yourself. Like if you let yourself be in abusive relationships or settle for someone out of convenience. It’s hard to tell when it is appropriate to reach out to a friend in a troubled relationship or mind your own business. Fine line. And sometimes, from what I can see, love is blind. (And it can take over your mind. Whatcha think is love, is surley not, you need to elevate and find. -Eve. Also prob not the right lyrics but they were my lyrics.) And if you have reached out and they didn’t hear you, then it’s best to let them find out on their own. Unless of course it is an abusive relationship, in which case you should intervene. Probably with the help of others.

There are so many forms of love. Love is too huge to be contained to one type of relationship. It is just flowing through us. Shifting from one person to another. Filling some as it empties others. You can see it in people, it’s like their “love vibe”, how much love they have in their lives. It shines through. Or maybe it glows. Either way you can feel it when you’re around them. I could see it pretty clearly in the kids I used to teach. It was through my teaching experience that I truly understood the phrase; “hurt people, hurt people.” Children, especially young children, have more raw emotion than adults. They are still learning their environment and their behaviors through observation and how to react to these intense emotions they are experiencing. So of course they pull from what they know, their daily life experiences. Some are scared to give their love away, others give it freely. Depends on how they are treated in their environment by the closest people in their lives. That’s what really drew me to teaching. The idea that I could potentially change lives for the better. Help people, help the community. It’s an amazingly humbling profession. But these experiences helped me realize that there is enough hate in the world. I want to foster the love. I want to be kind. I want to be supportive of people. Build people up, fill the kids with love. Love isn’t a finite thing. You can create as much as you want. Give as much as you want. Focusing on the negative just forces you to live in the negative. It’s crazy to think you can fill someone with good emotions. You have control of that, how you treat people. So a tip to help find that love vibe is to GIVE love. Give your love away. The world will give it back. It works like that. I’m pretty sure anyway. It will brighten your love vibe.

I think different relationships serve different purposes in your life. This is a rather recent enlightenment. We put a lot of restrictions on our heart and it causes us a lot of pain. Possibly unnecessary pain. If expectations are clear for relationships then maybe it’s possible to have more than one love-like relationship. I know, I know… hang me in front of town hall. But think about it. I know male, female relationships can be tricky. A lot of people say gals and guys can’t be close friends. One is inevitably attracted to the other and wants to sleep with them. If this attraction did not exist, the friendship would cease to exist. I don’t agree. I have male friends and the relationships are based off of common interests, not attraction. I think.

I’m a pretty fickle person when it comes to love. I haven’t always been able to tell the difference between love and infatuation. This was especially hard when I was a young, impressionable, hormonal girl. Can’t wait to raise one of those. LMFAO. But if I’m being completely honest, for me it has always been easy to have feelings for more than one person. Not saying that I always had simultaneous feelings of romantic love, just saying it was never an outlandish thing for me to grasp. There has been more than one time when I’ve been with someone and been attracted to other(s). Go ahead act like I’m alone. But then you’re supposed to just choose someone. But it’s supposed to be a SUPER obvious choice. Even though there are 7.7 billion people on Earth. So everybody just happens to find their “soul mate” in close proximity? Hmmmm. I’m totally not saying that I don’t believe in the “you just know” feeling. I don’t believe in it for me. Saying that doesn’t mean I love my husband any less. I love him with my whole heart. I’m just being honest. The fickleness! I do, however, definitely think you can feel chemistry straight away. Like ziiiiiing. I felt that with my husband. I used to live for that. (In college) And is primal, sexual chemistry different than compatibility?

I think we need to expand what we think of as a love relationship. It’s not going to be like it was in the sappy romance novels you (I) read in high school. Be realistic. I don’t by any means mean you should settle, but you are going to have to compromise in some way. For example, there have been moments when I thought my husband was an insufferable know-it-all. And I’m confident he’s wanted to kick my messy, ADD ass… quite often. But we compliment each other. We make it a point to make each other feel good. We love each other on a very deep level. We choose to work with our strengths and look past the imperfections. No one is perfect. Duh.

My husband and I had a special relationship from the start. We have always been very open with each other. Honest about our feelings towards marriage and monogamy, what we expected from our relationship. How the whole “forever and ever” thing kinda freaked us out. It’s important to be honest about expectations from the beginning. Obvi we decided our lives are way better together. We’ve gotten better at communicating over the years. Thank goodness considering we’ve been together for 13 years now. But working on our communication really has helped our relationship tremendously and it continues to. We did the “5 Languages of Love Test” which I highly recommend. A coworker that I taught with in Atlanta encouraged us to do it in our classrooms to help identify the students’ different learning styles and needs. (Highly recommend if you are a teacher) It gives real insight to how your partner gives and receives love. For example, my love language is “touch.” So I like cuddles and kisses and rubs. Rubs alllll day for me. My husband’s love language is “acts of service.” So he likes when I like do the dishes for him…barf (And yes he is the dishwasher in the house on the regular. Hat tipped) or take out the trash. Little things to show that I am thinking of him and appreciate all he does for us. Anyway, since we became aware of how one another likes to receive love, we became better at giving love. Giving love in the way your partner can understand it as love. They way they perceive love. Which is probably different than yours…get it? Hippie shit <3

So Free Love <3

Notes:

It’s important to give to the universe what you want to receive from the universe. So give love. Be kind. Good things will start happening.

Be realistic. Open your mind to a broader idea of love.

If you have someone please do the “5 Languages of Love Test.” It’s worth it.

Give love away. Build people up.