Blog In Love

Valentine's Day.

I
love
Valentine's
Day.

It's second only to Hallowe'en. I support the holidays that center around sugary delight.

And it's not because I'm in a relationship. My best Valentine's day EVER was when my friend Christine knew that it was my first Valentine's Day single so she brought me a carnation to school. It was the most thoughtful gift.

General thoughts on love...

1. Your heart IS capable of falling in love. Again. And Again. And Again. Each time is different. And what is love to you at that point in time is pure sincere love.
How I felt for my first boyfriend in highschool is nothing for how I feel for my husband (even though I was with the boyfriend longer than when I with Kraig when i married him)...but at the time, for my 15 year old mentality...that to me was love.
And maybe how I'll feel about love when I'm 50 is different than how I feel about it today.

2. Falling in love is the most nauseating thing ever. You realize that someone has this pull on your heart...you can't just give them up...you get all giggly and silly and crap...but then when something goes wrong, your heart falls to the pit of your stomach...it's awful. Falling in love is truly awful.

3. Having someone fall OUT of love with you is gut wrenchingly brutal. I mean, obviously it's brutal, but not too many people have been in love but have had the object of their affections fall out of love with them (usually it generally happens at the same time). It rips you to pieces inside, like someone is killing you slowly.

4. BEING in love...and the realization that someone is in love with you too...is the most fabulous wonderful feeling on earth. Okay not the MOST fabulous, but it's up there.

started this a few days ago, continuing now...

5. It's amazing how "history" is often translated to love. You could be with someone for 10 years...you could be with soemone else for 1 year...and for some reason, the feelings you have for the 1 year person are harder to justify than the person of 10 years even if you never ever felt that same passion or emotion.

One guy I dated for 4 years...it was just ASSUMED we'd stay together and get married and all that. I mean, we had no REASON to not be together...we loved each other, but he flat out told me when we started dating that if we didn't end up together for the long haul he was going to be pissed for having wasted all his time. Well...I guess I wasted his time 'cause I didn't love him enough to stay in Ottawa after I got a job offer in Cali....

6. I have a 3 month rule when it comes to love. In my mind, you just can't be in love within the first 3 months. You can be obsessed, infatuated, have passion...but you can't be in love. The first 3 months EVERYTHING is fabulous and great...but after 3 months you start to show your true self to each other, and if you STILL like the person after that...then it might be love.
I'm even willing to say this knowing the first week I met Kraig that I was going to marry him.
But...
This rule kind of goes out the window if you already knew the person previous to dating. My 3 month rule applies to when you meet and almost instantly become bf/gf.

7. In my opinion, it would be rough being the first one to say "I love you". I've never, ever had to do that...(I'm pretty sure Kraig said it drunk a week later at Tony's bbq....)...isn't it just soooo much easier when the other person says it first so that there's zero fear of rejection?

8. I know, I know, I know...Valentine's Day is really a holiday to cater to women. It's sexist. It's horrible. I know. But you don't need to go as all out as you think. Heck, you can skip the flowers even...get a single rose if you want (we're not retarded, we know the markup around Vday is astronimical...we'd rather you save the cash and surprise us on some other random day)...just a heart shaped box of chocolates, a sweet card (extra bonus points if you made it yourself a la Nick Lachey)...make us dinner (i.e. get takeout if you have to, put them in nice serving plates to make it LOOK like you cooked)...we are such suckers for anything that makes it look like you put in efforts.

Extra points if you put rose petals on the bed with pretty candles (unless it's the chick's bed...not all women are okay with roses staining their sheets.)...don't forget the music!

Point is: no need to go out for a crazy hard-to-get reservation dinner, no need to blow $100 on $9.99 roses, no need to go all out crazy...but anything cheesy will go a long, long, LONG way.

9. The majority of us (99.999999999999999999999%) will never be a part of that disgustingly cute adorable "perfect" couple that makes everyone sick. Especially after marriage. To answer someone's question...YES, it is perfectly normal to want to rip your mate's head off. Great love isn't just where you sometimes fight...yeah, sometimes you're going to wish you had a sledgehammer in one hand, a garbage bag in the other.

10. Mmm. chocolates. Heart shaped boxed chocolates. With hazelnuts. Mmmgughgngngngng.

11. From what I've heard of with all the online dating things out there (which i am SOO pro....if that was prevalent last time I was single, I would have been all OVER that stuff!!), it seems like eHarmony.com has the most credibility. It seems like Match.com is the most "iffy"...although granted, more people use Match so you're going to get a higher concentration of psychos out there too.

12. My GENERALIZED (note the word generalized!) definition of love is whether you'd be willing to give a kidney to that person.
Now Nicole D did raise an interesting point that really that's more a sign of commitment vs. love...because if you have alove of say 3 months that you'll never see again, that's different.
I mulled it over...
And i stand by my statement. For the following reasons:
a) a kidney is the one organ you've got that you can't regenerate (as opposed to bone marrow) and you can give one away without dying (unlike a heart) BUT it is still a major major sacrifice and you ARE taking a massive risk. (My boss only has one kidney...trust me, you need both. One isn't there for backup).

b) It's irrelevant whether I'll ever see them again. I love my girlfriends...if Nicole D was moving to Utah, with no form of communication, but needed a kidney...I'd give her one. Regardless if i ever saw her again. 'Cause i figure, when you love someone (friends, boyfriend, whoever), you truly care about their welfare, regardless of where you'll fit in down the road.

c) I'm not saying this is the all-encompassing definition...it's just a good rule of thumb when in doubt I figure. There's not too many people I'd give a kidney to. Heck, after I have kids, my list will narrow down even more ('cause my other kidney is reserved for kids first over anyone).

d) i still reserve the right to nag forever about how the kidney recipient treats my kidney. I"m not saying love is giving it away blindly. I OWN that mother effing kidney forever. You drink too many shots and i'll punch you in the face. ANd maybe take my kidney back. I love you enough to take that risk...you can love me enough to put down the beer.

13. There are no kisses better than kisses from your cat. I don't care if he's Ryan Reynolds. Tom Welling. Insert your own hot celebrity. The kisses and love from a cat is always ALWAYS the best.

14. As much as movies will tell us otherwise, no one's gonna save your ass. Maybe this is more anti-love, but I figure it's just more realistic. I grew up a HUGE Disney fan...fairytale fan...nothing's hotter than a knight on a spiffy horse. No one is going to save you from yourself. They might help you, inspire you, but in the end, YOU gotta save yourself.
Not to say that chivalry is dead...when it comes to drunken bar fights, yeah I still think dudes will step in for a lady (moreso I think to demonstrate the size of their balls than to be chivalrous).

I'm just saying...love isn't about someone saving you...although I have to admit, deep down, I probably still believe that it is.

15. Funny how the things that weren't romantic at one time become the most heart warming stories later. When Kraig proposed, the whole story made for more wallowing than anything else (I was positive he was dumping me), and I felt stupid at the time telling people about the proposal. NOW...I"m so glad it happened the way it did, because if he had done the typical "Stroll along in the park got on one knee flashed a ring", I don't think my heart would race as much as when I think of the actual story. It was perfect, even if I didn't realize it at the time.

16. What happens to two people who love each other but for some reason but even after a long while haven't said to each other? (Yeah some of you know who i'm talking about). This isn't so much a thought as much as a question...it's a balance in the force. If boy loves girl...and girl loves boy....what happens when it remains unspoken? Is that like the elephant in the room no one wants to mention? But a GOOD elephant? Isn't there some cosmic force out of whack when two people who love each other don't ACKNOWLEDGE it to each other?!

17. Although, sometimes, it just isn't good to let that stuff be known...ladies, NEVER tell a guy "I love you" within the first week. More importantly, the first NIGHT. If you ever say it to a guy and he instantly has a look of Deer in Headlights...say "ha ha, JUST KIDDING...I'm not some psycho stalker, don't worry".

18. Yes, it is possible to love two people at once. Three people...you might not be discriminatory enough with your emotions. But two...it happens. It sucks, but it happens. (Well if you're one of the two that the other person loves anyway). All that crap you see on soap operas where someone can't choose between two? It goes back to how your heart is capable of loving more than one person in your lifetime...you just love each one differently.

19. One of my favorite passages about love and time:
What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

Gets me choked up every time.

So for February i'm going to countdown 14 Love Songs Till Valentine's Day.
Until then...

The song of the day is Shake That by Eminem...seriously SUCH a great song. BLows my mind. My mind...is blown.

Now shake that ass for me, shake that ass for me
Come on girl, shake that ass for me, shake that ass for me
Ohh girl, shake that ass for me, shake that ass for me
Come on girl, shake that ass for me, shake that ass for me

Yep. Pure poetry.