once I asked what love was like.

And now I know. The thing about love is that yes, I am certain I was in love before, but it was never like this. Before, I was always stressed, and panicking, and acting, and the reason for that was simple. There was no trust. I did not trust him, and I did not trust myself, and to be honest, I think he trusted me even less and himself not at all.

And I thought that was love, because that was what I was conditioned to believe, that when two people are attracted to each other that way, it must be love.

Except that it wasn't; it could not be love, any more than Romeo's crush on Rosaline was love. You may think it love when you will do anything to be with the person, and you may think it love when you will accept anything from that person just so that they will not leave you.

But that is not love.

If it is not love when you are only willing to take, it is also not love when all you want to do is give. There is no difference between putting your heart in someone's hands knowing that it will be broken and taking someone's trust and grinding it beneath your feet, merely flip sides of the same coin.

Nor is love about sex. Sex has become a commodity to some - a bribe, a laugh between friends, a fleeting pleasure in the night - and to tie love with sex is to head down the highway to disappointment, although there will probably be some love shacks on the way to heartbreak hotel.

Love is both all and none of the above; far more dramatic and far more prosaic. It is when you can place your trust in that person completely and receive trust in return; it is when you demand nothing and receive everything and the reverse is true.

Love is... symmetric. It has to be between equals who are content to be equal. By this I do not mean that both have to be equally intelligent or rich - only that none of that should matter. And like all symmetric effects, it has the potential to be everything.

And so I put my trust in you, because when the sun comes out, the moon stands no chance at all.


~RS
May, 2005
Used With Permission