I’m not ready for love. That is what I have learned. The guy friend elimination and the dating prevention is all because my heart is not ready.
Love is big. It’s bigger than us, stretching beyond our little worlds.
I’m not ready for that – the big, beautiful, scary experience of real love.
I’ve seen so many settle; settle down, settle into love. Receiving what they think love is and giving in the only manner they know how.
No one ever really learns love. We don’t take a course on defining love, what it means, what it is and how to practice it, no. We pick up tidbits and ideas from here and there and formulate our own belief of love.
And then we dive in, head first. We dive before we learn how to swim. We leap into the water with our feet merely skimming the surrounding surface in order to propel us into the pool. We are love driven creatures and it is bred into our nature to search to quench our desire.
In taking a back seat from the pursuit of love this semester, I have also witnessed that truth – that we are beings driven by love. We seek this force, this emotion, whole-heartedly. We yearn after this beautiful tale, this drama of romance.
The end goal is marriage. It is for me, as it is for most everyone. This goal, however, is overtaking many lives. Love determines the direction of our days. Life now is consumed by the life of the future, which doesn’t exist, which is unpredictable. We create these big beautiful lives, these tales of true love and full homes and hearts. Some may go as far to the type of car and number of dogs. Others, less extreme, may simply rest peacefully in the false security of life and love forming together in the future. I’m not saying a wedding, four kids, two dogs and a beach house is not in your future. I’m merely just pointing out how it is all we think about.
Maybe that absolute ‘all’ is not deserved, but if you take the time to pick apart your life, you can begin to see how much of it is driven toward this idea of love.
It’s found in dating, in the constant search for someone or the next one, which we convince ourselves is the right one. But it takes four next ones and a history of wrong ones to find the perfect one. It becomes a part time job, all at the expense of the heart.
It’s in the endless pursuit of success. We want to do well and succeed because it makes us more marketable and therefore desirable. The sixth year senior who cannot manage to pass government in order to graduate is not exactly dating or marriage material. But the Bio Pre-Med student who is on track to Med School and Residency is another story…
We also desire to succeed in order to secure a safe, comfortable future. I personally believe the lie that if I do well now and work hard now, the future will be easier. However, there are no guarantees. A 4.0, a respectable, successful boyfriend and Instagram perfect life does not ensure financially secure or emotionally secure life. It doesn’t prevent tragedy or illness. It doesn’t make me immune to the woeful ways of the world and the struggles of society.
Our focus turns to this, this idea of the future, of marriage, of love.
Our little worlds grow to solar systems, and before we know it we are trying to make this imaginary galaxy tangible.
Eight months ago my older sister got married. She made it; she crossed the romantic finish line. I was asking her about marriage, what it’s like, how it’s different from dating and engagement. Amongst many words she spoke this truth:
If you think marriage is going to make you happy, it’s not. (or something of that nature).
Essentially, this newly-wed, lovebird revealed the shocking truth, crushing the heart of every romantic. Marriage is not going to make you happy. Yes, it is great, it is good, full of love and joy, but it is also hard. Of course, I don’t know, but that’s what I hear.
What I do know is that all relationships are hard, from marriage, to dating, to friends and siblings. It is hard; to love someone and love them well. True love, pure love, is extending our focus beyond ourselves.
Love is a lot like selflessness; it isn’t thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less.
My sister received some of the simplest yet profound marriage wisdom in the months of her engagement (from the parents of my best childhood friend). It was this:
“Never stop trying to out-love one another.”
That is how I have defined love since, an endless pursuit focused on the recipient. There is no room for selfishness in love and most definitely not a marriage.
Knowing this, I have concluded I am not ready for love. I am not ready to put down my desires, to sacrifice when it hurts and to constantly put someone before me. I’m in a place where my needs need to be a priority (and should be). So single I stay and single I’ll be until I grow to a place where I no longer am the focus of my world.
