Carly's Ramblings Blog - Style

What Is Love?

Blog City – Day 1097

Prompt: How do you know you love someone or something? What are the signs, feelings, thoughts, according to you?

I used to think I knew this.... but, sadly, I don't.

If you love something,
Set it free,
If it comes back,
It's yours.
If it doesn't
It never was.

It is not certain who first said this, but my Dad loved this poem. He set my Mother free... and she came back... He died knowing she did love him despite the problems that their marriage held. I held onto that...

You can't hold onto something without squeezing the life out of it. You need to be able to love and let it go, knowing that if it is true they will return. In a relationship, each person needs the freedom to be themselves, to grow into who they are and still know they are loved. There needs to be some breathing space to be complete as a person and still want to be part of the couple. If either person holds on to tightly the relationship suffers... it gets snuffed out and dies.

One of my favourite songs: Straight Lines


Each person in the relationship needs to encourage and support the dreams of the other. You can't force someone to conform to the other and expect love to grow. It would be analogous to putting a plant in a pot and expecting it to flourish when the pot is clearly too small. You need to reassess and re-pot every so often so that it can get the nutrients it needs to reach it's potential. Besides the best plants are wild... growing in nature, surrounded by other plants.... maybe even in a garden that is the couple's making - together they create something beautiful; that others can see and admire.
Coupledom is wonderful, but you both need to be willing to re-pot or weed out as necessary. Tend the garden that is your relationship.

Empty Garden by Elton John (Tribute to John Lennon)


We each need to cultivate a life that makes us attract good things to us. Our garden is our life. Fill it with lovely things and tend it... maybe you will have someone in your life that can join you and together you make it all the more wonderful. Choose carefully. You want someone who cares as much as you do; someone who will work with you as you cultivate that preciousness that is life. You don't want someone that will rip out and tear down the beauty you have already started. You also don't want to ban others from seeing and enjoying all you have to offer.

Love should never hurt....


And so the quest to find and keep love continues....