I think I begin to understand.

I think I begin to understand what love is.

I am not saying that I am in love now, or last week even, but I think that something begins to make me understand.  It’s been really hard for me to understand this, this thing called love (isn’t that a song?).

As you might be aware, I have just come out of a relatively short relationship.  I mean, I think, in total it really only lasted a month.  Nothing about this relationship was normal for me, it fit no patterns that I was previously involved in.  To start with, she had been my friend for over a year when I started having feelings for her.  This, in particular, is strange for me, it is rare for me to begin an attraction to someone after I have known them for a while.   It is extremely normal for me to have numerous feelings for friends, of differing depths and strengths but not so much for late forming ones.

   In addition, I don’t know, to this day, what it is about her that made me start thinking about her as more than a friend.  I know why she is my friend; she is smart, funny, witty, sarcastic, and just a lot of fun to talk to.   When you think about it, all of these things even make the fact that I became attracted to her make sense.  But she was all of these things for the more than a year that she was my friend before that, and there were no feelings of romance. 

   It’s not like I didn’t put the question to myself either, I did, on more than one occasion.  It was made even more difficult by the fact that I felt signals from her that indicated that she was interested in me in a more than friendly way.  But each time I put it, it came back as, this is a really cool person to have as a friend.

   Then…I don’t know what. Just then.  They started.  The feelings.  Thankfully, we managed to convey to each other that there were feelings there and things started up.  And this is where the understanding of what love really is comes from. I can’t say that I was in love with her.  There just wasn’t time for that to happen for me.  But what did happen was kind of peculiar.

   I think that there were as many reasons to be in this relationship as there were reasons to be not be in it.  Even aside from the obvious things of timing and distance. 
   I’ve been in love once in my life. It was years ago, to a woman that I shared so many things in common on so many levels that it still floors me to think about it.  We related on every level, we connected on everything.  It’s not that everything was peaches and cream but it was the case that dissent never mattered.  You know though, I just don’t think dissent really was a part of the relationship.  And I was always sure, about everything, about how much we liked each other, or well, how much I liked her, and why and why I should.  All foibles were cute and wonderful.

   Things were not exactly the same this time.  I could always tell you why we should be friends, I could never tell you why we should be more than that.   That doesn’t sound right.  I mean, to be friends is a very important part of a relationship.  And when you think about it, what is a good relationship beyond friendship with attraction?  But…here….i kept wondering and yet not.
   The thing is that there was a never-ending list of things that made me question.  Little tiny things, little tiny unimportant things that never mattered when we were just friends but when we were in a relationship they made me question.  Or would have but didn’t.  And that’s just the thing…while there were things that rationally and logically said to me that the relationship wasn’t…necessarily right, there were a bundle of feelings that just kept disagreeing.  You see I liked her.  All of a sudden feelings meant more than logic.  It didn’t matter if the person should just be a friend or not, the feelings were there.
   Today, over 3 weeks after we broke up, logic dictates that I should be pretty much over it, her, the relationship.  But I’m not.  It isn’t going away like that.  I guess this is because of the feelings.  I guess this is what love is like.  You know… I had always wondered about fights and how they would affect myself in a relationship.  You see, fights, large disagreements, even small ones, they tended to drive me away and doubt any feelings I had.  Trouble, conflict, whatever, it all made me wonder if I should be in a relationship with this person.  Even the smallest things would produce so much doubt.  I would find myself thinking about ending the relationship, just walking away.

    This never happened here.  These doubts didn’t happen.  The same sort of conflict or disagreements that had happened before that might chase me off before…didn’t even phase me.  Things like this really shouldn’t matter all that much, they really shouldn’t. When you are having a relationship you keep feeling even though you have a disagreement.  That’s what feelings are about. They transcend.
   And look at this…it is harder to get rid of feelings when you have them.  Perhaps it is the fact that there was something so dramatic and different here that is making it harder for me to get over.  I’m not sure.  Maybe I just relish the feelings…cause they are so real.  But what I do know is that while I can not say that I fell in love in this relationship, I have experienced something that has shown me what love is like.  At least another type, the type where it isn’t always peaches and cream. 
   Not only do I have a much better chance of understanding and being in it the next time it occurs, I am also much better equipped to understand the relationships of my friends. When I talk to a friend and they are unhappy, sad, angry, whatever I always wonder what it is that keeps them there when they are like this. And the answer was always simple; love.  But I never really got it.  Now I think I can understand a little better.