You're Nobody 'til Somebody Loves You

I have been thinking a lot about love lately. Maybe you have noticed? The longer I go without having someone around to love, the more I wonder if I even remember how to love. I grow comfortable in my "independence" in some ways. And yet my heart feels incredibly uncomfortable in its current state of living without someone to love. I have even come to the point where I have asked: What is love? I feel like my heart is starting to forget. (Perhaps I am trying to remember, with all these love-filled post lately.) 

When I was with my family not too long ago, I asked the question: What is the definition of love? I let them know I was not just talking about love in general for all people. I wanted to discuss romantic love: or the love of a spouse. I knew that I would get some common answers such as, service, and putting someone else's needs above your own. These are, of course, good and true answers. However, I was interested in digging a little deeper... into the raw feelings part of love.

There are the things we do, and there are the things we feel.

I sat upright, cuddled in blankets, on the guest room bed in my brother's home. I listened intently as a few brave souls attempted to define what love meant to them. It was not easy to answer, because love seems a bit elusive; perhaps ebbing and flowing like waves upon the shore, or wind that caresses the trees. Love is ever moving and changing with time and attention: or lack of time and attention. From one day to the next, love may cause the most intense comfort, or the most excruciating pain. I have certainly felt both.

My dad (who is a true romantic), described love with one word:

Fire. 

He is old, and wise, and has always loved and cherished my mother. He began to poetically describe how feeling love is to burn: to be on fire. But that fire can also fizzle out, if we do not keep the spark of love alive. He went on in greater detail... perhaps I will have him write a blog post about love and fire for me sometime. (How about it, dad?) 

I am afraid that I am also a romantic, like my father before me, and the love that I have experienced in my life has been of the fiery-sort. Of course there was service and sacrifice involved; but there was also a deep passion that was there from the beginning, that kept us close. That fire had to be nourished though, it was never just there. It had to be sparked by the things we chose to do together, or for each other. (There is that service thing again.) And yet, there was something. There was something that drove us together. (I am not just talking hormones, though that was originally part of it, for sure.)

If love is fire, I was as a moth to the flame.

Our love was never just service, or doing nice things for each other. There was something more... something that made my heart swirl with excitement whenever Charles would enter a room. He captivated me, enchanted me. And I do not speak like this just because he is gone; I wrote plenty of mushy-love blog post about him when he was here. Again, that is because I am a hopeless romantic, and part of who I am. When I love someone, I love with full-gusto.

I am not for the faint of heart.

It will take someone with great courage to embrace what I am, and have become.

Earlier today, I was listening to the Nat King Cole station, and I heard the song "You're Nobody 'til Somebody Loves You". (If you have never heard the song, you can google it.) Now, I know this is not true. Of course you are somebody, even if nobody loves you! And the fact is, there is always someone who loves you (Heavenly Father), and that is a beautiful thing. But I have talked to enough people who have lost love (or never found it), to know that people love to be in love. And when people do not have love, they are hoping for it. It is not that I am nobody 'til somebody loves me, it is just that I feel more "somebody" when I am in love. Call me crazy, but it is true for me.

For me, life is so much more beautiful, when I have the fire of romantic love burning in my heart. I know that the love I am capable of giving, receiving, and feeling, is not saved exclusively for just Charles -- time and experience has taught me this. My heart has been stretched and molded, and I have a new understanding about its capacities. I am sure the future holds even greater lessons for me in that department. These are lessons I am willing to learn, even though I am terrified of my heart exploding with such intense feelings. But I am one who has had love and lost it, and I currently hope to find it again. (I understand I have the prospect of eternity to enjoy love in the future, but I live in mortality now, and I feel a desire to love again in my lifetime.) 

As the song says, I hope to find "somebody to love."

OK, enough about me...

Me, me, me... blah, blah, blah.

What about you?

What do you do to keep the fire of love alive? How would you define love? How does experiencing love make you feel? Are there things you can do to keep the spark of love burning? (I am looking for clean, wholesome, answers.) ;) 

(Just to show that I was mushy about Charles when he was alive... here is a song I wrote for him years ago. The video is not the best quality (it's old) but you get the idea.)