Are you in Love?

Is there a difference between loving someone and being in love? Can you have both?

I think this is very personal for people, and my experience and opinions have dramatically changed over time. I am specifically talking about romantic love here.

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine and I asked her:

"What does love mean to you? What does being in love mean to you?"

She did a great job explaining them both to me, then she pointed out she wasn't sure, because she had never had good examples of loving relationships growing up, and that maybe that was why she felt she didn't really know what love was.

I think if we dig deep in us, despite our experiences of love or lack thereof - in other words, regardless if you have had good examples of love personified when you were growing up, love is something within us. You love within first perhaps.

Falling in love is what many call the Honeymoon Period or Phase. All my life and throughout all my relationships, I have felt that the Honeymoon Phase dwindles. I equate it to the initial spark when you light up a match, it's when the flame is bigger and almost explosive, when it goes from nothing to everything. And that loving someone is that steady flame after the inital spark.

Being in love is all those sensations: the butterflies, the excitement, the mesmerizing feeling of that person being perfect, the giggling part of love.

Loving someone is wanting the best for them, despite their flaws and challenges. Recognizing that the good surpasses the bad and that you still choose that person now, every day, every moment, even if they drive you crazy. It's the realization that even if the years go by and even if the intimacy of physical pleasure subsides, that you still want that person by your side as your companion, so you can laugh and cry together.

Now, are there couples who love each other and whose Honeymoon Phase has never expired? Yes. I know very few, and I think it is a rarity. It is refreshing to see two people look into each other's eyes and to the outsider, you still see the spark, the awe and that longing of being in love with someone, but you also recognize that they have built a life together and that they have supported each other through good and bad times.

If you have the duo of loving someone and being in love with them in your current relationship, then you are one of the lucky ones.

I never thought it was possible until it happened to me, and it took 41 years to find. I don't know why and what makes it so. I think there is a synchronicity that happens, maybe by the hands of the Universe - a little magic.

I wish you find that magic, first within you. Then, perhaps the glittering dust of love will sprinkle around you, either with a new person or your current one. Every day that passes, you fall in love more and more with that person. Pure magic...