Love is in the air.

I am in the middle of preparations for my bro's wedding. It's happening this Saturday. Ahhh, weddings. The thought of them makes me dizzy with bliss.

Anyway, I found this in some file. It was a journal entry I had to write for my 'Families and Individuals in Society' class in college.

I re-read it and thought it was cute.

We were discussing what love and infatuation were. Here's what I came up with:

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In my personal opinion, infatuation and love are two very different things although in many cases, they are often mixed up. When it comes to mate selection, especially at this age of adolescence, I don't think I know what or maybe who I really want. My ideal Mr Man-of-my-dreams keeps altering the same way I want chocolate flavoured ice-cream one day and vanilla the next.

Having said that, yes I have been infatuated. I've had crushes that melted my stubborn heart and made me swoon at the thoughts of our hopefully fairytale future together. During this period, I cannot control the quickening of heart rate, the sweaty palms and the tell-tale smile that plasters itself all over my silly face. Just a glimpse of him, a thought, an sms, a friendly 'Hi'...and I'm well, high (pun unintended).

This I will call infatuation.

However, love is commitment. Love has staying power. It is enduring and pretty astonishing so that it bears both the tough and the mundane times. It is not just feeling good anymore but being good instead. It is saying I'll take the chocolate ice-cream today even though I prefer vanilla because I believe in the relationship. It's not so much what I can get out of the relationship as it is, what I can put in. It's when I may not have to like the person right now, but I do love him, and I will like him again...just later. It's when I can separate what he has done, from who he is and accept him for that.

This is a peek of what I think love is.

How will I know which is which? Why, that's the kazilion dollar question. In my opinion, love is action. Why? Because actions are activated by motives and because we can't know the true intent of another's heart (not unless I'm God which I'm not) I guess the next best thing to watch out for is action. Action not just in the first minutes of a relationship but over a period of time. For sure, stress will test this, lust will test this, misunderstandings will test this, people will test this, the world will test this, little things will test this and at the end of all these tests, if both are still faithful, then maybe, just maybe, that's love.

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I am looking forward to this Saturday...and beyond that.