allthingsconsidered.

love's my permission to be who i am
no inhibitions 'cause you understand
freedom to breathe, oh baby
love is you
chrisette michele - love is you


lately, i've been taking into consideration the idea of love, the possibilities, what it implies, and that kind of thing. i realized that one of my biggest goals, besides success, is to have a family. it hit hard two times, especially. one was yesterday at the barbeque when Kevin was leaving. little Chris wouldn't let me leave him alone at all, so i had to carry him with me. and there was a moment when Kevin was hugging me to him while i had Chris in my arms... and it flashed across my mind that this could be (or possibly IS) my future - a husband and a child. and it didn't feel scary like most thoughts about the future. it was really comforting, a feeling of being... where i wanted to be? where i needed to be? satisfaction. maybe that was it. the feeling of peeking into a place later on in life where i'll have accomplished one of my goals. the second moment was today in church. it was a really emotional service and everyone was feeling it. i was crying and i found that i was crying mostly when i saw moments between people and their children. and i had been doing mostly quiet crying... tears just running down my face. but after the prayer and we all went around to hug each other, i picked up little Chris and i broke down. i'm still not sure why, but i cried into that toddler's shirt like he was my own. i realized that i love that little boy with everything in me. i couldn't love him more if he was my own flesh and blood and i've only known him for a few months. i can't deny how much of my heart is into caring for small children. but part of me is trying to figure out how much of that is my gift and/or my calling and how much is me and my passion for the goal of having my own family.

when i talked in high school to my friends about having a family in the future, so many of them said they wanted them later on, that they wanted to be able to "live life" first and travel the world and whatnot. i never really thought that way. yes, i want to travel and see the world and enjoy being a young woman, but i don't see that as a precursor to having a family (or, to put it another way, as having a family being a hinderance to enjoying life and what the world has to offer). in no way am i rushing becoming a mother. i don't intend for that day to come any time soon. but i am looking forward to it. i want to be able to wake my kids up in the morning and feed them cereal while i put together their lunches and other corny, cliche stuff like that.

all this leads me into thinking about love. more than just what you think would hold a boyfriend and girlfriend together (ideally), love to me is the glue in any relationship, be it family, spouses, or friends. so, logically, in order to build the family that i want in my future, i'd need someone that i love to start with. i don't know about anyone else, but in any relationship i'm in with a guy, i try to see if i could end up with them for life. not saying that i'm trying to marry anyone i'm with right off the bat (because that would be scary), but just to see if this is a living, growing relationship with potential rather than something that is momentary and fleeting. simply put, i want to be in a relationship for the long haul, not just to have a short moment of fun. so now i'm getting to that point of thinking with Kevin. it's only been five months, to give this a frame of reality, but, like i said, i want to be in this for the long haul. he's also said that he feels the same way, which is good - we're on the same page with this. so i find myself trying to discern whether this is love or not, and if it IS, whether i'm IN love, which is tricky. i am quick to HAVE LOVE for people - to care about them in a general sense, to want good things for them, etc. my challenge now is to be able to separate that type of love from the type of love that creates marriages and families. i've been examining a lot. i do have that elementary general love for him, but there is more built on that. i mean, we fight like who-knows-what. arguing every month or every other week, getting mad at each other for stuff, getting pissed off... but in the end, both of us still have no problem with saying that we love each other, no problem trying to make amends. also, i grapple with the fact that both of us came into this wary and bruised. we both have self-esteem problems, things that we see in ourselves that feel other people wouldn't be able to accept us for. and we both took this really shaky step to admit it to each other. and nothing happened. nobody got laughed at or tossed to the side or judged. we just were. i take that into consideration as well. we've gone over stuff like this before and i still don't know if i'm in love for sure or whatever.

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/5997/googlethisjl6.png

i wish it were that easy.



peace.