For the first time in what feels like eons, Sam looked into my eyes this morning and said “I love you” with his whole being – not just the words. I did not realize at that very moment what had transpired in only the briefest of seconds. Sam has fallen in love with me again. After all the drama and angst of breaking up over the course of a month or so, then a sudden decision to stay together, Sam has fallen in love with me again.
Do you remember when we were younger, in elementary school, or even high school, when the question was popped, “Do you like him? I mean, like like?” There’s a subtle difference between the two. You could like someone, as in friend. Or, you could like like someone, as in crush or love. But how are we discerning the difference? Our rushed heartbeat? Our flushed skin? The animal thing that happens when two people are attracted to each other?
The same can be said for loving someone versus being in love with someone. How can we actually give specific traits to one or the other? The differences are so subtle, so intangible, I’ve struggled to explain it. Is one better than the other? Does one have more bearing, more weight? I’m not sure.
I’ve heard my friends say, at one point or another about some ex-partner, or soon-to-be ex-partner, “I love them, but I am not in love with them anymore.” I’d always assumed the difference was sexual desire. If you were in love with someone, you must have some sexual desire for that person; then, in the absence of that desire, in love somehow transforms into a regular old love.
In this scenario, which I’ve held for many many years, love in and of itself is not preferable to being in love. I want to be in love. Not just loved. Throughout the break up Sam continually said “I love you.” Even while he was uncertain if he wanted a romantic relationship with me. To him, his offering of plain old love was more encompassing than being in love; he felt it was the better, greater gift – to love me, not just be in love with me.
For most of my life, I’ve felt that being in love was the greater gift. To be desired by someone, or loved so much by someone that they wish to express that love sexually. But why in the world would I dismiss the value of plain old love in lieu of being in love? Does it all really just boil down to sex? Just sex? The thing that has caused me so much pain and hurt is rejection on a sexual level? Goodness gracious, am I shallow?
Yet, in love seems so passing, so fleeting, so uncertain. In the blink of an eye, one can fall out of love. But loving someone, just regular old love, takes time and effort. It must be built. It must be allowed to develop. And then, during rocky, unstable times in the relationship, regular old love is the thing that holds it all together. If plain old love is the drab concrete foundation of your whole house, then being in love may only be the color palette you’ve chosen. And if that is true, then I’ve been living my life with paint-chip relationships when what I’ve really needed was a solid foundation for that relationship.
But, does that mean that being in love is a lesser gift? I don’t think so. I think that while regular love is the foundation for the relationship, being in love is the brush stroke that gives our relationships life and spark. It makes the relationship something we desire. Being in love is a facet of love, one of the many disguises it can take, one of the many gifts it bestows on some blessed people.
And so, Sam has fallen in love with me again. He always loved me – I do not doubt that. Plain old regular love. But it wasn’t until this moment, when I could see that his love for me had taken on a certain glow, an almost intangible enhancement, that I understood the thing that has been evading me all along. Regular, plain, old love was something we’d actually built together. It was the piece that helped us heal our hurts and hearts, and try again. It was the thing we both wanted to hold on to when we were falling to pieces. It wasn’t something he offered me, it wasn’t a gift. It was something we made, together. It was the foundation of our relationship. And falling in love, being in love, that uncertain facet of love I cannot quite describe, is the warm light of a candle in the window when you’ve been away from home so long.
