We seem to reach different levels in life without ever realizing it's happened.
Relationships are no different.
Love isn't either.
It's taken me a while, and an insane amount of life experience, to be able to see the variations. Truth be told, there is no way I'd have been able to see it when I was 20 years old. I didn't have the experiences to compare. I couldn't look back and see how one level was different from another.
It's crystal now.
When I was 20...actually, even 5 years ago, if you'd have asked me what real love was about, I could have given you a deep, profound response. A writer's response. One influenced by the media, love stories I've read, songs I've listened to. In other words...a skewed, manipulated response.
That was then.
Then it would have been about how it felt. How it made me feel. I would have described it in a way that really would have been more superficial than in-depth.
Today, I see it differently. But even with my penchant for words, I'm not sure I can explain it in a way that will give it life or do it justice. Today,
I see it as being about the connection. And it isn't the physical connection, at least not the sexually physical type. Don't get me wrong...that is amazing with the right person. But in order for that aspect to amaze, you have to connect on other levels first.
I realized this recently and somewhat by accident, really. Isn't that how it always happens? When you're looking for answers or epiphanies, they rarely ever show themselves...but try to clear your mind and fall asleep at night and suddenly you're inundated with a writer's equivalent to Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Answers. To questions you probably didn't even realize you had. But there they are. Staring you down. Daring you to acknowledge them. So I did.
What I acknowledged is this: When I'm not with him, I miss him. And I can honestly say that I miss
him. Not the idea of him. Not how he makes me feel or what he does for me. Not just the idea of having someone in my life, but HIM. The person he is. Even if I don't get to see him, I want to talk to him. I want to laugh with him and hear about his day. I just want that interaction with him. When something happens during my day, he is the first person I want to tell about it. Even if it's something ridiculous. Okay, that's not really a fair statement because if it's something ridiculous, I
especially want to tell him. Ridiculousness is kind of our thing. :)
The point is this...looking back over other relationships I've had, I can see the difference. I can see that before it was all about feelings. But that's just one level...it's when you move beyond that level that things get real. Things get interesting. And they can get scary.
I admit, he scares me a little...mainly because I don't want to imagine my life without him. Even if I could never kiss him again, fall asleep with my head resting on his chest, be entangled in his embrace...those wouldn't be the things I missed most. It would be our conversations, the time I get to spend laughing with him, just being with him.
His friendship...that's what means the most to me. And because of that level, every other level of connection I have with him is that much more amazing.
