What is true love?

Feb 24, 2012

Jennifer Wright talks about true love...

Contributor's Content

What is true love?

When I was seventeen years old, I was deeply in love with my boyfriend. He was my first love and I considered him to be the love of my life. He got me in every way. It was an undeniable connection. I had never let anyone completely in. But, he had all of my heart from the very beginning. I can so vividly remember the way he would look at me. It was with such adoration. Everytime I spoke. Everytime I touched him. Everytime I kissed him. He was genuinely interested in me as a person, always wanting to know everything he could about me.  I never grew tired of him, even after some time together. It always felt new and there was always more I wanted to know about him.

It was much more than infatuation. And much more than the fact that he was my first love. It went beyond that. It went deeper than that. Even though I was very young, I was aware of this. I remember thinking at that time that this is what true love is. This is everything I want and need in another. This was who I wanted to spend my life with. But, fate would have other plans for us.

As an adult now, I find myself conflicted with wondering what true love really is. The conflict is often torture for me, at times. Is it the man who looks at me adoringly, is patient with me and treats me tenderly? The man who knows what I’m feeling before I utter a word? The man who takes an interest in me? The man who kisses me like no other and sweeps me off my feet? Is it the man that I am able to captivate in every way? Or is true love the man who would be by my bedside, should I have an illness?  The man who comes home at the time he says he will. The man who is reliable, dependable and always a rock no matter what circumstance may arise in life and no matter what is thrown his way. The man who is all about actions, not words. “Words are just words”, he says. Which of these is true love? Is it both? Can we as women have both? I think most of us women want both the man who will cherish us, romance us and make us feel special and loved. But, will also be reliable and strong for us.

Maybe true love is whatever we perceive it to be. Maybe it depends on who we are as a person, where we are in life, what experiences we have gone through as children and as adults. Whoever sticks with you through the triumphs and falls. Maybe true love is to be discovered along the way. Along life’s journey that each of us is on. Maybe it is on this journey that we will learn who we truly are and once we learn that, we will finally discover what true love really is…….