Time Will Tell

(Day 3 – Your First Love. Okay. I strayed a little and made it into a “What is Love” piece. Minus points if I’m doing this as an actual assignment. But I did write about “him” in the end. ^_~)

Should I go all spiritual and say that God is my first love? Or should I go all philosophical (namimilosopo in Filipino terms) and say that my parents are the first human beings that I have ever associated the “L” word with? Perhaps I should go all artistic and say literature and arts were the first to truly capture my heart.

I know I would drive you all crazy because I assume you want to know about the romantic kind of first love.

Should I indulge you?

Yes. No. Maybe.

I belong to the club of NBSBs (No Boyfriend Since Birth). I’ve had crushes and crashes (with more crashes than crushes) but I’ve never really allowed those mere obsessions to be more than that. In high school I was picky and the guys I liked didn’t like me back. In college I was pickier still. Some of the guys I liked seemed to like me back (I assume too much, yes) but I realized that I wasn’t prepared to be in that kind of relationship at the time. And I really wasn’t so sure if they could handle me, or if I could handle them.

I’ve come to believe that love isn’t just you liking me or me liking you or us liking one another. And it isn’t just having giddy and sparkly feelings. I go for all the fireworks. I go for the magic and euphoria. I’m all for those things. But still. Love is much, much, much more than that.

Love is acceptance. When you love somebody, you love that person for the person he or she is. Not for the person you want to force him or her to become. Not for the person you imagine him or her to be. But simply for that: for whoever he or she is. You accept that person’s past, you accept who he or she is at the moment, and you accept the fact that person may change and you’ll have to remain firm in the decision to love that person through and through.

Love is understanding. There’ll be times when the person you love will drive you crazy (in every negative sense) and instances when circumstances around you and between you two will make you go insane. But you’ll just have to… understand. To strive to get where the other person is coming from. To do your best to not let aggravation, impatience, or exasperation rule you. To find the meaning in the things that are happening. Or if that can not be, to simply just find the silver lining… in everything.

Love is commitment. A commitment to work things out. A commitment to communicate. A commitment to trust and persevere. And a commitment to – once you both have decided that you’re in it for forever – make sure that you see the whole thing through. You can’t just give up somewhere in the middle. Because love just doesn’t work that way. Yes, I’m idealistic. But if that love is true, I believe it will last until eternity is through.

And love is a choice and a decision. I’m open to the idea of “love at first sight”. “Falling in love” is a phrase that I use all the time. But love involves your will and not just your emotions. Because feelings come and go. And you’ll need more than feelings when acceptance, understanding, and commitment are involved.  Eventually, it would all boil down to you and your decision to love and keep on loving no matter what.

With such high standards on love, you’ll understand my affiliation to the NBSB club.

But I’m supposed to be writing about my first love, aren’t I?

Well. I believe my first love is a person exemplifying love as I’ve written here and more still. He’ll be a person who’ll accept me despite my many flaws. He’ll be one who will understand when real or imaginary storms rage all around me. He’ll be someone who will commit to communicate, to trust, to persevere. My first love will choose to love me even at times when it gets so, so hard.

He may feel that he will – or does – fall short on these things. But he’ll be someone who I know would be willing to learn to love in this way anyway.

And he’ll be real. He won’t be a figment of my idealistic imagination. He will be a genuine person with a past, present, and future I would choose to accept. He will be somebody I would decide to understand. He will be a tangible being whom I would be committed to work things out with. He would be that person I would make that decision to… love.

If these “he will be” lines seem to contradict with my statements saying that “you don’t love a person for what you imagine him or her to be” or “for the person you want to force him or her to become” – well I have faith that he is, or willing to be, these things. I won’t force him. And I’m not simply just dreaming those aspects of him up. I know that this “first love” is an imperfect human being. Still, as long as I know he has the heart to learn, I’ll accept him anyway.

So. Time will tell who this first love will be. : )