Love Is Weird

Statistics show that we will meet an average of 10,000 people in our lifetime. Of these people, 84 percent will practice a specific faith. 72 percent will be identified as white. Less than 10 percent will be LGBT. It can be assumed 90 percent of these people are not serial killers. Some of these people will have a quiet nature about them. Some of them (like my husband) will come through a room like the Kool Aid Man bursting through the wall. Some of these people will have brown eyes; while others have blue or green. Some of these people will be creative and free-spirited. Some of these people will be intellectuals. All of these people will be beautiful in their own right. But, one day, we just look at one of these people and think, “I love you.” What is it about this person that made you decide to love? How love actually works is a mystery that men of all walks of life have tackled since the beginning of time.

Now I didn’t know this; but apparently there are four specific types of love. You can have an empathetic love for someone. This is developed through a shared circumstance. Tragedy has a way of bringing us together as the survival instincts kick in. Of course there’s the God love- the unconditional love that only a parent could possibly understand. Then you have a friendship bond like the one I share and treasure with Vickey. We met as babies; have shared secrets and sins, happiness and tragedy; and nothing will ever break our bond. And then there’s the complicated love. The romantic love. The love that will drive you to drink. The love that will break your heart. The love that we all crave. And it is this love that just jumps out of nowhere. We just meet one of the 10,000 people we are destined to meet; and there it is, our missing puzzle piece; sitting among 10,000 other pieces. And it’s a perfect fit.

I should’ve never gone out with my husband. I had just gotten out of a 20-year toxic relationship. I was traumatized. I was deathly insecure. I was, for lack of better words, shook. But I had known him forever; spotted him on the side of the highway; and decided to stop and say “hi”. He was not for me. He was wild and unpredictable. He was a confirmed bachelor; and he had no idea of the craziness he was about to encounter. But, there it was- my little missing puzzle piece. And, before I knew it; I invited him over for a movie and drink.

I have met lots of people in this world. Some are gay. Some are shy. Some are rich. Some are poor. Most are crazy because crazy attracts crazy. And I had known David all his life. But on that day, at that point in my life, no one else I had met in this world was the fit. And even though he wasn’t a fit in the past; on that specific day Slingshot was the perfect fit. Strange how that works.

If you write down our attributes on a piece of paper, we were never supposed to work. He had zero responsibilities; and loved it that way. I was trying to rebuild my entire life with two children, a cat and a dog in tow. But when we were together, it was a perfect fit; and has been that way ever since. That’s usually the way it works with love. It’s an emotion, it’s not physical. Therefore it cannot be planned or contrived. It just happens; and it’s usually beyond our control. We can fight it if we want. But love usually wins in the end.

Love is powerful. More powerful than any emotion. I can only imagine that God gave man this emotion because He wanted us to have some idea of how He felt for us. Because love is not something that you can touch or see; he had to give us the emotion so we could experience it ourselves. Unfortunately, as times have become more strained and complicated; in an attempt to better our world; and jump on the revolution bandwagon, we’ve repressed any human emotion that can be perceived as weak. Love being the biggest victim. If everyone would just realize that love is more powerful than hate- then we could have a true revolution together as one. But it seems like love has lost its popularity.

In this day and age, we want a direct and immediate answer for everything. We don’t appreciate the unknown; we only crave instant gratification. But my aunt has told me numerous times that the heart is as deep and as mysterious as the sea. It is in the heart where love dwells. And, unfortunately, we can’t just yell out, “Alexa! Explain these emotions I am feeling for this random person that just came into my life.” That’s not how this works.

Our life is a huge puzzle, made up of a thousand little pieces. We have a picture of what it is supposed to look like. We have all the equipment to get it done. But, we have to take our time, try out each individual piece and see how or where it fits in our lives. Sometimes it works perfectly, other times, we have to wait until we get further along before we can utilize it. Sometimes the edges are smooth and we can pick them up and put them down without a hitch. Others are razor sharp and cut us; but they still belong in there somewhere. And, in the end, when it is all said and done; and we have met those 10,000 people we are destined to meet; and done all the crazy things we are destined to do- we will have a complete picture of our life.

That completed puzzle will have four corners holding it all together. And just like in our hearts, it is in those four corners where our four loves dwell. The empathetic love we have garnered over the years of experience will be in one corner. Those friendships we have built that have cried and laughed with us will be in another corner. And, in that third corner will be your person that your soul found. The one that made your heart beat fast; and calmed your nerves all at the same time. And in that last corner, the strongest corner of all, that starting pieces lies. And in this piece is the unconditional love of God.