I was naive about the love I saw in the Disney Films and the pop songs on the radio. I felt the yearning, desperation of love and I wanted that playground love to be magical when it happened. I clued in, during my youth, that to love was not to burden and not smother but to share and to grow with. When I was young, I would say “I love you because I need you”. Now that I’ve grown up “I need you because I love you”.
This is what happens when two people who understand themselves come together. They’re actually able to enhance each other’s potential. A relationship shouldn’t be about compromises. It should be about empowering the other person to achieve their goals. Helping them grow to become the individual they deserve to become, that they can become. It’s not about selfish motives. It’s not about what we want. Relationships are not about us.
What usually happens is that two people come together to “complete each other”. They come together and they depend on each other and this dependence leads to a drain. This drain leads to more pain and insight into what it feels like to constantly have someone who depends on you for everything. That starts to create a barrier or a bitterness between the two individuals where one, actually, starts to feel that they’re carrying the other person the whole way through.
That’s why we all need to find someone who makes us want to change our life and not just our relationship status. Finding someone that makes us want to be our best. Finding someone that makes us want to question how we act and behave. Someone who makes us think about our widest possibilities, someone who thinks about our greatest goals and dreams, and someone who inspires you.
Someone who inspires you to make a difference in your life and the lives of others. That… is true love.
To two people that know this love.
Much love, Jeff and Betsy.
Love knows no bounds.
Photo by Sara France
www.francephotographers.com