Love Manifesto

Through some odd inspiration, I have gotten out of bed in the cold of my basement, and red eyed and saddened, have found a well of inspiration about love. And just like love, (you'll read about it later), this kind of inspiration doesn't just happen all the time, and so I had to run up here and write it.

Love is what makes the world go round my fellow readers. Love is the fuel of the soul, the food of the heart, and the desire of nearly every person on earth. I'm not talking about love for money, love for food, love for bowling (an admirable one though) or love for anything else, except that someone. When I say someone, I don't necessarily mean your spouse, but the person that makes you smile and run around wanting to share your heart with everyone because it's just bursting with joy. That's what love does to you, and that's why it is so powerful. It spreads through you like wildfire and then travels to the next person. Have you seen someone in love recently? I have. It's contagious. You want what they have, you want to love too and you want to be loved. Nothing in this world my friends, is more wonderful. That's right, I said it, nothing. Period. Perhaps my inner romantic has stuck it's head up a little too high, but what else gives you that feeling that love does. NOTHING!! But your chance can be so fleeting sometimes!

When you meet someone, and they are in almost every way such a perfect match for you, you grab ahold and don't let go. You can't let something like that go. Yes I know I'm still young, but I'm old enough to realize that matches such as that one, rarely come along. And if you've ever had that match, you know what I'm talking about. The one that instantly connects, that instantly understands everything that no one else could have or did. The one that makes you make sense. The one that makes your place in this world fit, when it never seemed to do that before. That's the kind of love you dream of, you write about, hell, it's midnight and I'm up here spilling my guts out about it because I couldn't lie in bed and contain it. It inspires paintings, sculptures, sacrifices of the grandest proportion (not killing sacrifices, geez), it inspires music, writing, it inspires people's souls to be better than they ever could alone. None of these has inspired this true love. People don't go to an art museum and look at a painting and fall in love with someone like that. No. They go to the concert, and because they are in love, the music just dances and flows like never before. It doesn't work the reverse my friends; love inspires, and there's no way around that.

But when love taps you on the shoulder, and that match drops into your lap, you have a decision to make, and that decision is always lurking too. Do I go for it? It seems like a simple question, and if my heart had to decide that instant, it would jump up and down yelling and screaming and waving it's hands like crazy. YES!! YES DAMMIT!! Do you realize what has been given to you? What has been dropped into your hands?? You have what is so very rare, and beautiful, and delicate and wonderful and awe inspiring, and it's yours.

Ahh, if life were that simple. Then your brain chimes in. "But what if you get hurt?" That's one of the big things, getting hurt. You jump after love and let go, and you could be in for a world of hurt, and boy does it hurt. I've jumped without a parachute a couple times, and I payed a hefty price on my heart. It has been broken, tattered, shattered, and a bunch of other bad things, but you know what? It always came back to me. And if it has been hurt excrutiatingly bad a ton of times, I wouldn't change a thing. You know why? Because that one time where that person comes along, and you jump in together, and you stick it out and make it, will be the best moment and feeling that I can't come close to describing right now. It will overshadow every time you've been hurt by a million times. Love, though inspiring and amazing, isn't easy, and shouldn't be. If it was, it wouldn't be so sought after, would it.

One of you will pull back and get scared. Maybe someone will start doubting it. Who knows. And love is scary. It makes you lose control, and we humans can't handle not being in control. It makes you different too. I'm not the same when I'm in love and when I'm out of it. I know I'm not. Think about flying. If you're in the plane on the ground, and you get in, you have a decision to make. If you are more scared of crashing then you are desiring a wonderful experience and view, then you won't take off. You'll stay on the ground with everyone else, looking up at the lucky ones who get to see the world from the air, who get the amazing views and wonderful experiences, who come back to the ground different, smiling, with understanding, perspective, all those things. And you were in the waiting room drinking coffee. I say you as the collective reader.

Love requires trust too. You don't jump in with both feet and your heart if you can't trust that person, because they hold the most valuable part of you now. But remember, you hold the most valuable part of them too. They need to trust you as much as you need to trust them, and they need you to treat their heart with love and care and concern for it as much as you need them to do it as well. That's what love is about! I've got your heart, and it is safe in my hands, and I won't do anything to harm it or do it wrong, and I would hurt myself before letting any of that happen. I would suffer before I let something happen to you. THAT'S what love is. No, I'm not saying your life should now become that person, of course not. I'm not saying you should completely kill yourself in order to make them happy or look out for them. In a perfect world, you both would be looking out for each other, and you wouldn't have to worry about your own heart. You know it's in good hands and you know theirs is too. I know I write about this and make it sound simple. In some ways, love is. And I think it's in more ways than not. Love is only complicated when we make it complicated. Love in itself is simple, until we start thinking about it and worrying about it or ourselves, or analyzing it and projecting it and all this other stuff.

Maybe I'm too optimistic or too much of a hopeFUL romantic, but to me, if someone that you've been searching for and dreaming about, just falls into your lap, and they have been wanting someone just like you, then you go after it with reckless abandon. You throw caution to the wind and say "let's just see" and with wide eyes, full hearts, eager anticipation and joy, you go together, in love.