Collection of Articles

Love or In Love?

When I sat down to write my final article for journalism I had the whole thing planned out.  I was going to talk to my grandparents, my parents, and my boyfriend.  I was going to compare how three generations met and fell in love.

See, my grandparents met when they were 16 and have been together ever since.  My parents met when my stepfather was 25 and my mother was 20 and pregnant with me.  I met my boyfriend when I was eight, we started dating this year and I can see myself marrying him in ten years.

Looking at how times change and how the people in my family met seemed a great place to start on this article.

Coincidentally, this whole thing took place over Thanksgiving break.  I had a plane ticket to fly across the continent to where my boyfriend goes to school in Vancouver.  I spent the week with him, paying attention to the little things and having a conversation with him about where we are going with our relationship.

As I sat on the airplane bringing me back home, nearly crying my eyes out because I missed him already, I began wondering what the difference between loving someone and being in love with them is.  See, I have known Jared (my boyfriend) since we were only eight years old.  By the time I was ten I was in love with him.  When we were in seventh grade we tried being boyfriend and girlfriend, but we were just kids and I did not want to ruin a chance for a future with him.  Our ‘relationship’ lasted three days, five tops.  Through high school we kept in touch, he went to a private school and I was at the public school.

When we went off to college we began talking even more than we had in years.  Then, this summer, my family went up to Ontario to visit his family at their cottage on a lake.  Sparks flew and we ended up spending the rest of the summer together.

I have always loved Jared, and I know I always will.  He has been a constant in my life even when I didn’t see him.  I care about him more than I have cared for anyone else outside of my family.  I know that if this relationship doesn’t end in us saying “I Do” we will always be apart of each others lives.  And although seeing him marry someone else would be like stabbing my in the stomach with a knife, I would be there to support him.

But does this mean that I am in love with him?  With that question looming over my head the entire week I was with him, I decided to ask around.  I have so many women in my life that I see as mother figures and when asked the difference between love and being in love, each one had something completely different to say.

My mother tried to explain her view on the topic, saying that being in love means that you want to make that person happy above anything else.  As an extremely independent woman all I wanted to say was “Count me out then.”  But then my mother attempted to rephrase what she had said.  She wanted me to understand that love comes with sacrifices.  She explained that every sacrifice you make however, you want to make.  She explained that being in love with someone was a strong feeling for that one person.  That you want your day to begin and end with that person and that being with them is natural.

My best friend’s mother took to the bible to explain.  She said that God had to be the first thing in any relationship and that I should look to him for the answer I was looking for.  Now, I am not a religious person.  I believe in God and have a relationship with him, but that is as far as I go. But then she went in to talking about the different stages of love.  She called the beginning the “movie love” where everything is new and exciting.  She then said that you fall into a comfort with one another and being around that person in as natural as breathing.

In the end, both women had a very similar explanation for being in love, even though they took different approaches to the finish.  Now I realize that I could be in love with Jared, but time will tell.  Spending the week with him was amazing, and him being the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night was something I could get used to. 

Now, I realize everyone has his or her own definition of what being in love is.  You find the definition that fits for you.  I am not sure if I have found mine yet, just as I am not sure that Jared is the one.  It’s one of those ideas that you cannot put a specific dictionary definition on; it just happens and comes to you.  It is love after all.