Love versus in love

In today's society, people banter about words without giving much thought to them. Think about words that should have great meaning -- like I love you. To some, this phrase has a deep almost spiritual meaning to it, and it is reserved only for those special people with which much love is shared. For example, between husband and wife, between mother and child, and even between best friends.

Walking the halls of anyschool, USA will allow you to hear this phrase put into more common terms. Children use it as a greeting of sorts. A quick hug and an I love you before departing to the next class. The air thick with juvenile against to fit in perhaps causes children to use this phrase in perhaps less than an actual love situation. Or perhaps there are different sorts of love.

What is the difference in the phrase I love you when compared with the phrase I am in love with you? Surely there is a difference. We, as a society tend to save I am in love with you for our partners in life, at least for the most part, while I love you can mean the love a parent has for children and best friends.

Remove the I am in love with you from the equation of a marriage. Shouldn't I love you and I am in love with you have the same meaning in this circumstance? If the two statements do represent different meanings, what then? The relationship has now shifted to expose a raw side; one that is easily wounded, and begs the question, can the relationship continue without both components?

A sad tale

Is love really all about the physicality of a relationship or is it something more. Something deeper. What constitutes being in love or just loving someone. Is there a difference? Or is love just that -- you either love someone or something or you don't. What are the parameters of being in love and can a relationship exist if one partner says that being in love doesn't exist for them?

Becoming me

It has occurred to me that no matter how hard we try, we can't protect our children from the hurts of life. It is these actions -- some of them anyway -- that turn them into well adjusted adults. Life must be lived on their terms, and not our own. No matter how much we wish it otherwise, we can't be there to cushion each fall.

I compare my own adventure into adult hood with that of my children. Did my parents feel the pain of each of my hurts as I do my own children? How do other parents feel? I have tended to surround myself with like-minded adults, and I know how they feel. I want to know how others feel.

Perhaps we are never really grown until we can take a step back and allow those most closest to our hearts pick themselves up when they fall. It is this act of letting go that frees them to find their own sense of self, and perhaps it allows us to close the chapter of who we are and begin the next chapter of our own lives.