I'm a romance writer and I believe in love. Yet, love isn't easy. There are highs and lows. The romantic in me believes that you can endure those high and lows with the right kind of commitment. I truly believe that when you meet the love of your life you know it -- even if it takes you awhile to figure out it is love. I can say this as for years I had the strongest feelings for one man. I never would have classified it as love, but all I knew is that he made my heart skip when he walked in a room. Years later after many highs and lows that man came back into my life. As we renewed friendship, those feelings were the same for me as they had been so many years ago. At this point in my life I thought I had been in love before, but it was never a lasting feeling, nor did it give me the courage to be the person I knew I could be.
When did I realize I was truly in love? When I heard four little words, words I wasn't expecting. "I love you, too." Love me too?? I wasn't in love, or was I? Knowing you're in love doesn't give you the realization of how love will effect your life. In fact, it was years into our marriage that I realized I truly didn't know how to love unconditionally. Unconditional love is choosing to love someone regardless of behavior. It's not getting mad and walking away, or withholding saying "I love you" because you are angry. It's a choice that you make to continue to love regardless of the hurt you maybe feeling.
Only that kind of love can withstand the roller coaster ride of life. If you find the one that loves you unconditionally as well, the roller coaster ride will only bring you closer. That kind of love grows through the storms that you weather together. And what if your love doesn't know how to love unconditionally? Do you walk away and write it off as a mistake? No, you continue with your choice of unconditional love. The love that life's ebbing tides can't wash away.
So have you found that person who you choose to love unconditionally, no matter what? That person who as you love them unconditionally, you realize the person you are and who you can be?
