Dream Home

It really was a beautiful house. Made of rough stone, with ivy creeping up the side, a heavy wooden door, and even a cobblestone walkway through the garden. It really was perfect. It had met all of her requirements, and for that reason she was pretty sad to leave it. But the world is full of adventures and she knew eventually she'd come back.

At first she missed the house a lot, she was reminded of it often and remembered it fondly. But as time passed and months turned into years, the memory of the house gathered cobwebs in her mind that she would have to mentally dust off every so often when she reminisced.

Finally the time came for her to return from her travels. As the date drew nearer and people reminded her of her imminent departure, she realized how excited she was to reunite with the house. It once again occupied many frequent thoughts. She wondered if it had changed much, if the ivy had been cut back or left to grow wild. She wondered if the dent in the front door was still there or if it had been fixed...

Upon her arrival her excitement was hard to contain, and as she walked up to the gate, she paused to take it all in. It was just as she imagined it, just as she remembered it. Maybe even more beautiful. Just as she was about to open the gate, as if in synchronization the front door also began to open. From behind her favourite wooden door, with the dent no longer visible, stepped another beautiful woman looking perfectly at home.

Suddenly everything shifts into focus. As the one woman walks down the cobblestone path, she doesn't even notice the other standing at the gate. She takes one step off the path to remove the "SOLD" sign from the lawn. The woman at the gate is at a loss...this isn't her house...it never was...it had always been for sale...she didn't even put an offer down before she left...and now it was occupied, though only recently, and the opportunity was lost.

There is no happy ending to this story. The woman was left standing there, unable to go any closer than the white picket fence to which she clung, and her breath caught in her throat. She exhaled a unsteady sigh of loss and regret. Then she turned and walked away, hoping that soon, very soon, the cobwebs would return and cover any images left of the house in a thick grey haze that could not be swept away.

Someone

Someone who can read me
Someone who can hug me and make me feel safe
Someone who makes me laugh
Someone who isn't afraid to argue and make me cry
Someone who reads
Someone who knows that asking for help is a big deal and will drop anything on the few occasions when I do
Someone who can surprise me
Someone on time
Someone who will once or twice a year hold me while I have a really good cry
Someone who knows I'm strong, but will still do the heavy lifting
Someone who doesn't tuck the sheets in
Someone who takes risks
Someone who can handle silence
Someone who will kill all the spiders
Someone who leads

Someone like that is the someone I want :)

Philos

We all seem to run into this dilemma at some point in our lives where we all wish we could hear and say "I love you" more often, and yet we also don't want to diminish the meaning of love. I count myself among this frustrated number, and therefore find it helpful to distinguish between certain kinds of love. Love and "I love you" can mean countless things to different people, spark a range of emotions and cause people to act in a variety of ways. But just in regards to me personally, I think in its most basic sense, saying I love you means this: I care about you. I love many many things about you, and I unconditionally accept everything else. It means loyalty and respect and sometimes sacrifice. And I think this most basic, yet still powerful definition of love can be considered the love found in friendships. And then it is good to be reminded that 1 Corinthians 13 still applies even in the love found in friendships, that love is still real. So while I hope I do not use "I love you" flippantly, there are my closest friends who I really do love by this definition, and I feel no qualms about telling them so. I see no benefit in not telling people you love them when you do.

However, I can appreciate how things can sometimes get a bit hazy when friendship love crosses gender lines. And for that reason, I have found it helpful to define what I believe to be romantic love, by defining what friendship love is not....

Friendship "I love you" is not "I am in love with you"
Friendship "I love you" is not "I want to share the rest of my life with you, my home, my finances, everything"
Friendship "I love you" is not "I want to have a family with you"......and just for the record...
Friendship "I love you" is not "I want to have sex with you"
Friendship "I love you" is not "You past is my past, and I will carry your baggage as my own"
Friendship "I love you" is not "I am willing to put some of my dreams and goals on hold in order to pursue yours"

Now...if you and your friend feel any of the things on the above list about each other, then you have crossed the threshold into feelings of romantic love. On the one hand, congratulations for breaking out of the friend zone. I truly believe some of the best relationships begin as friendships, and I wish you all the best. On the other hand, if that's not what you're looking for with this friend, then I suggest you take caution, or, to quote Russell Peters: somebody a gonna get hurta reeeeal bad.

Lastly, the incredibly inexperienced love guru within me would like to draw your attention to one final point. Notice how the majority of things I mentioned pertaining to love are action words...acceptance, loyalty, sacrifice, patience, kindness etc. Furthermore, these are all choices, these are traits one chooses to emit. Which leads me to my strongest belief regarding love, and I've said this before. I do not believe love to be a feeling. Feelings are fleeting, feelings can fade, and feelings are sometimes out of our control. I believe love to be a choice, and that my good sirs is what gives the words "I love you" their weight.