Many of us look forward to February every year so that we can profess our love to the one we are committed to in a romantic relationship on Valentine’s Day. It is the one time of the year that many people pull out all of the stops with red roses, imported chocolates, and candlelit dinners.
It seems that no other time of the year gives attention to love like February, except maybe June with all of the weddings. In any case, the celebration of love might be understood best when we are willing to reflect on the love that we have in our romantic relationships.
I have come to understand that my romantic relationships have been supportive of me learning countless lessons about love. It is only in hindsight that I can now see some of the things that were blind to me when I was in the midst of a love affair.
For me, there are three distinct experiences with love, and they are as follows.
1. Learning Love: This is the kind of love that confuses us at first. It causes us to make decisions that might not be in our best interest. It is all about learning how to love ourselves and the partner of our dreams. Some people spend their entire lives learning about love with one person, while others know about love in many relationships.
2. Loving Love: This experience with love is intoxicating and can come with being swept off our feet. We might fall in love at first sight when we love love. Loving love has a way of blocking out anything that does not align with our bliss of being in love with another person. Many people fall in love with love for a day or for a lifetime.
3. Living Love: This way of loving seems in some ways to be a mature wisdom-based love. It might also include a healthy dose of loving experiences from previous relationships that support living with love in a calm and relaxed way. It allows partners to explore unconditional love and acceptance of each other. Many people aspire to live with love and might spend a lifetime pursuing finding it with another person.
I am massively grateful to each of my precious partners who supported me in learning and living love. Without those long term relationships and their unique experiences, I could not have reached a point with my husband where I get to live with love.
Love is more than a dozen red roses or a box of chocolates once a year; it is more about diving recklessly into the experiences of love that come towards us every day with our partners. Many of us experience love while making dinner together or doing laundry in our unique way, or making decisions that impact our relationships.
I look forward to celebrating the three kinds of love as we get closer to Valentine’s Day; for me, it is a culmination of the loving acts that happen throughout the year.
Have you considered how you might be unconsciously loving another person?
Could this be the year that you wake up to the experiences that love offers you each day, not just on February 14?
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This post has been republished on Medium.
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