The Chicken or the Egg?

"Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else." -George Bernard Shaw


Is love about finding the right person or you being in the right time of your life?  Western media perpetuates the idea that there is "The One" out there; if only you can just find them.  I've written about this topic before, but it just seems to keep coming up in my interactions with others.


There is a lovely movie that one of my friends (Thanks Allison!) recommended to me.  It's called TiMER, and its plot centers around a device that you can have attached to your body that is able to calculate the day that you will meet "The One."  I have watched this movie four times in the last couple of months; not because it's particularly mind-blowing but because I cannot stop thinking about this concept.

This is a funny and poignant movie that really examines the concept of "The One" and how it works within our ideas of love.  How can you know that you love someone unless you have a science-based timer telling you that it is guaranteed?  Should you bother getting into relationships with people that you know will be doomed because you are set to meet your "One" when you are 65 years old?  Can true love be scientifically proven?  Is it the right person, or the right time for you to settle?  If you know that your timer will go off when you are 30, are you fulfilling the timer's prophecy by refusing to take any romantic interests seriously until your timer goes off?


This movie asks some great questions; is the absolute scientific calculation of love a good thing?  Should we trust science and technology above how we feel about someone?


Watch this movie and listen to the questions that arise in your mind; and ask them to yourself, your friends, and me!

Challenge

The more I interview people, the more imperative it seems that we all ned to ask these questions of our family and friends.

Why do we let ourselves and the people we know make these huge commitments, like marriage, without asking all the questions we can think of?  Why do we get into serious relationships without discussing things like life goals, morals, and expectations?

It takes our whole lives to understand love--Why the rush to find someone special?  Take the time to realize that you are the someone special.
If you can't see the special in yourself, how ever could you find it in someone else?

I challenge you to ask questions to yourself or the people you care about.  Without letting anyone or any stereotype define you, who are you?  What do you need/want in a relationship?  How did your grandparents stay together for so long?  What are the most important traits for you in a significant other?  How did your recently engaged friend know that he/she would be able to commit to a lifelong partnership?  What does your grandparent think about sex before marriage?  These questions aren't easy to ask, believe me; I've been trying to fit them into regular conversation and I'm sure it can be seen as inappropriate.  But these questions deserve to be asked and answered; you owe it to yourself to understand these things about yourself, and to help your loved ones reach some sort of awareness.

Love is like a Cloud; It Holds a lot of Rain.

 I've been wrestling through this path to love enlightenment, someone brought up the idea that I should not only examine couples in long-lasting relationships but also love that has splintered or been broken.  This concept makes quite a lot of sense; it can be helpful to understand what has not worked as much as what has worked.
I have been lucky to have discussed love with a thoughtful and reflective family friend, Russ Hopkins.  As we sat on a patio shaded by trees, sipping on beer, Russ told me a lot about his evolution of love.

The first thing that Russ tells me is that love is like a forest fire, which has dual perspectives.  A fire burning through a forest is powerful and all encompassing, destroying everything that it comes across.  In that same vein, the fire is making room for a new habitat and other forms of life.  Within this metaphor, love consumes every bit of a person and creates change and new life.  Love as a forest fire is creating light and giving a sense of rebirth to a person.  This metaphor certainly resonates with me because love has carried me to places that I had previously never let myself go; it pulled at insecurities and fears that I had held far away from consciousness.  Love pulls us forward and onward, even when we are kicking and screaming to stay within comfort.

But what about a love that, like a forest fire, destroys the good bonds in a relationship?

Within this concept, Russ stressed the idea that often we want to love another person, we are looking for someone to love us.  We want to love so that we are loved; the feeling of being needed and irresistible is just to delicious to resist. We love to cure our own loneliness, we love to feel better about ourselves.

Hold on, wait: everything in Western culture tells me that loneliness is something to avoid, let alone acknowledge.  But is soothing loneliness a negative thing?  I would be in denial if I said that there is a clear line between loving for loves sake and loving to avoid being lonely.  But I would kidding myself if I said that getting into a relationship solely to feel less lonely is a functional way to live life.

This brings up yet another question: How do you know can your own need for love from the love you have for another person?  Our sense of self bleeds the lines of love in such a way that defies widely accepted laws of logic.  Russ argued that our own need for loneliness should not be a roadblock in love; we should not feel guilty for wanting to fill the void within ourselves with love.  The key to this idea is that you accept your own needs while also accepting your partner's needs amidst your bond together.  How do you know that you are doing this? To quote Russ, loneliness becomes magnified within a bad relationship.  If you feel misunderstood, hurt, or not heard within your relationship, it is very important to communicate these feelings as well as listen to your partner's needs to maintain a balance.

Russ focused on our Western culture and our focus on what love can do for us.  This goes along with the idea of loneliness, but takes it a step further in that we discuss love on perfect terms.  As a part of a capitalist society, we ask: "What can I get out of this?  How can I be happy in this perfect relationship?  I do not want to put energy into someone if it will not benefit me."

If we ask to be cured of loneliness, if we ask for someone to hold us as we cry, we are asking for a mate who will always be the strong person.  But if we look for someone who we appreciate, our void will be soothed as an aftertaste of love.

Russ highlighted Indian culture, where arranged marriage is a culture ritual that has been practiced over thousands of years.  Within Indian culture, marriage is seen as a mutual agreement or partnership.  In Western culture, marriage is legally a mutual partnership, but Russ argues that  our obsession with romantic love is a symptom of Western's frivolous culture.  Legally, marriage is a partnership that is a decision to work and grow together, but Western culture demands higher expectations of constant affection and adoration.  With an arranged marriage, the bond of marriage is outside the confines of "I need you, I love you, marry me;" the agreement to have two lives join is a seen as a growing experience.  Does this mean that we should throw out romantic love? Of course not, but the dichotomy of the dry unemotional legal aspect and fuzzy warm romantic feeling of marriage that our culture perpetuates is something to be aware of.

Where does the fuzzy romantic feeling end and where does the dry, abrasive idea of marriage come in?  Russ has experienced his share of abrasive love, in that he has been in a legal battle with his ex-wife over possessions, child custody, and everything in between.  This goes back to the idea that we need to accept and be aware of our need to fill loneliness.  In some cases, love can go horribly wrong when you drag out every bit of your hurt into divorce battles.  For an insecure person, fighting is a better love than no contact at all.  The marriage contract is something that is taken so lightly in America because we value romantic love over the legal bond.  When people make a huge commitment with lovey-dovey eyes covered in rose-colored glasses, it is a harsh reality when the business side of marriage, or even divorce, steps into the love game.

Russ discussed the need to be a self aware person when in love; how can you find anything special in someone else when you don't find yourself special?  If you cannot handle yourself and your needs or issues, how can you accept to witness another person's needs?  Love puts a well lit mirror on yourself and forces you to see the way the you perceive yourself.  To maintain a healthy relationship, you must fight battles with your own issues.  Russ explained how hard it is to love someone that is emotionally and mentally dysfunctional; this is where the loneliness being magnified in a bad relationship comes in.

The point that really proved exactly why I am doing this project is the answer that Russ gave when I asked him how his idea of love has evolved.  Russ began by saying in his twenties, he sought out the perfect mommy/wife figure, to take care of him as well as be a great mom to children; essentially, looking for the typical soulmate image.  In his marriage, he was looking for the perfect partnership, someone to promise to fill the lonely void.  With his divorce, he began to understand how people became cynical of love and felt caught in a web of dysfunctional pain.  He began to realize that the co-dependency of comforting each other's loneliness was not healthy.  If you solely love to be less lonely, you do not understand love at all.

Russ now sees love as a way to not give energy to another person, but focus on the wonders of the world.  Russ stressed the idea that we should not be giving our energy to another person when we should be focusing on the gods and the wonder of the universe.  If love does not begin by looking at God, it is centered on earthly things.  Russ said that the worst thing about love is when it becomes a form of worship focused on the other person and not the mysteries of the world.  Instead of looking at each other, we should hold hands as we gaze into the sky.

Meet Cute: A Man and Woman Walk into a Bar....

When I ask couples how they met, most have stories about meeting through a friend or high school/university.  There is one story, one of chance and fate, that stuck out to me when I heard it a few years ago.  My friend Beth agreed to let me share it with you, so please enjoy the simple beauty of chance.

I have been writing and writing drafts of their wonderful meet cute, and you know what? I'm no good at writing this story because Beth wrote it better. : ) So here are her words about how she met her boyfriend:

I used to complain to my mom that I wanted a boyfriend in college and she would say, "you're not ready yet" and I would get mad and say, "Yes I am!"  Then after being out of school for a few years, I was visiting my parent's house and I said to her, "Mom.  I am really ready now.  I am lonely and I wish I had a boyfriend to share my life with."  The next night I met Joe.  Does that make him less of a soul mate?  I don't think so.  I think God gives us what we can handle and he heard my request and let me 'see' Joe for the first time.  I say it like that because once I got to know Joe, we had a lot of things and people in common and I can see how we may have met in the past and maybe in the future if I didn't run into him at a bar one night.  His best friend, Mark, is the son of friends of my parents and I knew who Mark was from family parties throughout the years.  Another good friend of Joe's went to the school my mom taught at and was mentored by my mother and had heard of me through my mom.  His friend Mark was in a battle of the bands during high school at my mom's school (Brebeuf) and Joe attended that battle of the bands and so did I.  I dated an acquaintance of Joe's.  Most of his friends knew or had my mother as a teacher in school.  His brother was friends with a lot of guys who went to my high school and it was highly likely Joe and I would have ended up at the same party one day. Aside from all of these connections, Joe and I met completely by chance.  I was at a bar in Broadripple with some friends when I spun around quickly and literally ran into him.  I, of course, jokingly blamed him and since 'he' spilled my drink 'made' him buy me a new one.  We talked a long time in that same spot at the dive-y bar Connors while I was a little tipsy, to say the least, and he was not.  I didn't want to tell him I was an architect because in past experience, that seemed to make guys in bars run away from me...intimidating, I guess?  But finally, he coaxed it out of me and he said, "Really? That is the coolest job!  I wanted to be an architect!"  Eventually he had to leave so we made sure to exchange numbers and he promised he would call me the next day...to which I said, "Yeah right."  As I was falling asleep that night in my alcohol induced haze, I prayed to God that Joe would call me the next day. 4:00pm the next day, my phone rang.  We made plans for dinner later that week.  Up until the first date, I admit I was a little distant and I honestly thought, "Well, every date is a good experience."  It was after the first date that I fell head over heels.  Every thing we talked about during that dinner made me think, "Wow...really? We are so compatible!"  When he was asking me about my career in architecture, I said, "Well, I think my grandfathers both helped influence my decision to be an architect.  One was a structural engineer and the other was the President of John Hancock Life Insurance in Boston and I just fell in love with the Hancock Tower and visiting him at his office in the summers.  I used to think he owned that skyscraper."  And Joe said, "That's a great building.  Because of that building, they invented the mass damper system."  My jaw dropped to the floor.  I had done many reports on that tower and not many people knew that fact about the skyscraper and here was this cute guy sitting across from me, not bull shitting me and actually knowing things about my passions!  The whole dinner was like that.  One of us would talk about something and the other would say, "Oh yeah.  And ..."  When he dropped me off at my apartment after dinner, he gave me a small kiss on my lips and I closed the door, sat down, and just said, "Wow."  I swear I could feel that kiss the next day. My parents came to pick me up early the next morning as we were all heading to the airport for a family reunion in Florida.  In the car ride on the way to the airport my mom asked me how my date went and I told her.  She asked me what I liked about Joe and I had a long list and then she asked me what I didn't like (cause I always had an answer for that in the past) and I couldn't think of anything!  When I didn't answer, my mom turned around, looked at me, and then looked to my dad who was driving and said, "Uh-oh, we're in trouble!"  And the rest, as they say, is history.

Where is the Rule Book?

Something that has crossed my mind lately is that there are no rules in relationships.  Sure, there are dating rules, such as guys feeling pressured to pay for dinner, or when you propose, you are supposed to bend down on one knee.
But I am really focusing on the ways that we talk and communicate with each other.  There really are no rules; no set guidelines telling you, don't say that or yes that is a great thought to express.  Where is the red line drawn that states that if you say this, you will be throwing too hard of a punch or pressing on a vulnerable button?
There is no referee whistling for a time out or handing out penalties.  There is heart break and comfort zones crossed to the point of no return.

Therein lies the fear.  What if you overstep an invisible boundary line?  What do you do with the damage that you cause?  I have no clue.

But then there is the virtue of crossing boundaries in a loving way that reveals raw communication.
The raw communication being two humans, stripping down to the doubt and emotion that we hide from the everyday world.  Romantic love, friendships, family, or mentors; I don't care what relationship it is; the root of the point of these relationships is to see that we are all together burdened by our fear, shame, insecurity.  When we share these vulnerable thoughts and look at each other with clear eyes, we love.

Searching for Inspiration

There are only four questions of value in life. What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made of? What is worth living for? What is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.
Don Juan DeMarco (1995 film)

I've taken a bit of hiatus to my search to finding the answers to how we love and how we encounter our understandings of eros.  For that, I apologize.  There are plenty of thoughts running through my head, but they seem to be unrelated to love, at least directly.  Which is why this quote is fitting to redirect myself to How Do You Know?  When I think about religion or spirituality, where is the end of the discussion?  Love.  I have been pondering many areas of my soul, and it's time to focus back to the foundation and continue my thoughts on love.


I am continually grateful for family and friends who point me in new directions of love and encourage me to understand a new perspective or find a new article for me to read.  Thank you for all of your support, readers! : )


As always, please send any questions, topics, experiences that you would like for me to focus on at my new email address, k.wintereulberg@gmail.com!

How to Tell If Someone Loves You

 I stumbled upon this short writing piece, and it gives such a beautiful sense of what love really is.

How To Tell If Someone Loves You

Open Up Your Chest: Let Someone Mess You Up.

"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up."
—Neil Gaiman (author of The Kindly Ones)

 Does it mean to be vulnerable?  A breaking down of walls of security, a stripping of the masks that we wear to seem normal.  That seems kind of nice, doesn't it?  Being genuine and real with the person you love?

That idea is terrifying.  What if you strip yourself down to the beauty of your imperfect soul, to find that the person you love actually your flaws endearing, but unbearable?  The possibility of rejection seems to be a common agent in hindering love; fear is like a disease, infiltrating through our outward pleasantries into the deep place where we all like to hide.

I have been thinking about this feeling of fear, and the need to be accepted by the people that we value.  We pretend that we are above hurt feelings and push away feelings of pain to stay afloat in the Western society that scorns sadness.  Whenever I feel hurt, I seek solitude to brood in the safe confine of my own judgment.  Why would we want someone to see us at our worst?

But that is IT. IT being the meaning of love.  What would love be if it was just the surface?

Love breaks barriers and crashes through the superficial.  Whether this means a yelling match about forgetting an anniversary, or tears of fear that you are not worthy; the sharing of the scars and bruises between yourselves is IT.

Does this vulnerability confine itself within eros love?  I hope not.  Open yourself up, risk the rejection; the love that surrounds genuine actions blows away the fear.  You can love your friends and family in a different way than ignoring the sadness or pain by sharing your fears with others.  You just might find a deeper connection to humanity in your sharing of real feelings.

Upset with a friend? Hurt by a co-worker?  Why do we have to pretend that we are impervious?  Forget about brushing your feelings off your shoulder or hiding them within yourself.  Open up your chest, give into the love; give someone the chance to mess you up.

The Heart of Life is in the Questioning

Try googling long-distance relationships.  You will get so much information, it will make you either wish you had another 10 hours to pour over or desire to throw your computer and all of its answers into the garbage.  I happen to belong to the former, so I found a few sites that seemed promising.  Particularly one site  called 1000 Questions for Couples reigned above the rest.

1000 Questions for Couples attempts to attack the issue of running out of things to talk about when on the phone with your significant other while long distance.  But really, this information is useful for any couple, because it allows for communication to occur about subjects or issues that may not come up otherwise.

The creater, Michael Webb, has a few cheesy points, like the fact that he is very proud to have been married for 21 years and claims to never have had a fight with his wife.  That sounds extremely odd to me, but nonetheless, his idea is genius.

1000 Questions. That's a 1000 ways to understand your significant other, or really any friend or family member, in a different way!  The questions are varied across a broad spectrum of topics and very specific.  I really like that the questions require some thought, which takes out the awkwardness of one word answers.


These 1000 Questions come in an ebook that Michael Webb sells at his website for $27, which is something that I really did not see being able to budget. But, if you try to navigate away from the website, a pop up directs you to a free trial of 33 questions, which are emailed to you in increments of 3-4 each day.  I opted to do this, and really enjoyed talking about the questions every day.  I would definitely reccommend the 33 questions trial, and as a bonus, after the free trial, Michael sends one question a week in order to keep you interested.  This means more questions to ask!

Try it out and let me know what you think about the 33 Questions!

Where Imagination Becomes an Obstacle

I eagerly check PostSecret every Saturday evening/Sunday morning to read secrets that Frank Warren selected for the week.  If you have not discovered the beauty of PostSecret, please check it out right this instant.

On particular Sunday that was at least a year ago, I read this secret and I needed to catch a breath because it stopped me in my tracks and tugged on something deep inside.

What is it about this secret that hits right at my core?  What do you think about this secret?

It is really hard to give up the imaginations that I have built up from when I was running around in a princess dress at age 4 to now, when I still wear dresses but they are less pink and sparkly.  I have daydreamed and wondered about the person that I would spend the rest of my life with.  I know that I am not alone in this.  Even though we do not like admitting it, but we all have fantasies about finding the person that you can share a life with, whoever you imagine or whatever traits you want them to have.

When did this imagination and fantasy become something that keeps us from being able to let our imaginations go in order to love and accept a real person?

This imaginary perfect person is not something tangible or even something that can be found, yet we find ourselves feeling the lingering of that imaginary person.  Why does this imaginary person cast a shadow?

This brings my thoughts once again back to the idea of commitment and a decision to love the real person, right in front of us. With that idea, I have another picture:

Want to share your story of love or about the imaginary person in your head? Comment on here or email me at loudharmony58@gmail.com.

Quote of the Week

"As Sidda joined Vivi in staring out in the darkness of the fields, where hundreds of sunflowers grew, she thought: I will never fully know my mother, any more than I will ever know my father or Connor, or myself.  I have been missing the point.  The point is not knowing another person, or learning to love another person.  The point is simply this: how tender can we bear to be?  What good manners can we show as we welcome ourselves and others into our hearts?"---Rebecca Wells, Divine Secrets of Ya-Ya Sisterhood

COMING SOON

I'm developing a few posts about long distance, since it is something that is relevant to my life. If you have been part of a long distance relationship and would like to share your experience, please email me at loudharmony58@gmail.com!

I'm looking into researching every aspect of love that I can; the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Let me know if you have any topics that you would like to see!

Other things may change us, but we start and end with a family.-Anthony Brandt

I constantly hear from people that love is about the right timing, not the right person.  I've heard this saying so much that it has become part of my own mantra.  I find myself saying it to people without really giving it much thought.  Is finding someone that is right for you completely irrelevant to your growth and mindset?  Could you find someone who is perfect for you, but not be ready for marriage, and therefore don't pursue loving that person for life?

I can understand that concept on some level, but at the same time, it brings up this idea that love is not a romantic connection but merely two people meeting at a convenient time.

Maybe love isn't about the fate of meeting The One, but in fact the fate of becoming The You that will fall in love, whoever that lover is.
 
Life is like a training program in love; how can you tell if someone you are dating is a trainee or the real thing?

Say you are deeply in love, but you are not ready to settle--does that make that love experience a training love?  Or are there other factors that depend on which love is the love of your life? I really hope that there is more do love than just correct timing.  That is why I feel more comfortable with the commitment theory I talked about in my Piece of the Puzzle writing.  I would like to be able to choose someone, despite obstacles, because I love them, admire them, and have a great relationship with them.

Let's go back to the root question: How do you know that someone is the person you want to commit to?  How can you tell the difference between a love, and the love of your life?


I have been corresponding with a lovely friend, Beth Crawford, about her experiences with love, especially long distance.  One thing that she wrote about that stuck in my mind was an idea that the man she is dating now feels like a part of her family now.

Beth writes: "I knew I loved Joe about 3 months into our relationship.  I just came to realize that he made my life so much better and I would be devastated if I lost him.  In the past, I always had a feeling that my boyfriends weren't family.  If I lost them, it was an 'eh' feeling, I think.  I never felt the deep scary loss when our relationships ended as I imagine I would feel with Joe.  The same as I imagine I would feel if my mom or dad or sisters died.  For those who have a strong family connection, I think it might be easier to know when you are in love...because you want that new person to be a part of that family and you want to defend and protect that new person the same way you would a family."

The idea of a significant other becoming family seems like such a simple concept that it struck me so hard as I poured over Beth's words.

The feeling of family, sprinkled with a sense of defending them as well as being unable to imagine losing them, is a great way to understand how you love someone.  I had never even thought to consider this concept, but I find it useful.

It makes me think of how I am so trusting of my family that I am more of a bitch to them than anyone else. Do you think yourself being a bitch to your significant other? Then he's a keeper! (Ha. Please don't take me too seriously).

What does family mean to you?  Does your significant other fit into your idea of family?

Paper Heart

Paper Heart

I'm not sure how many you readers have seen this movie, because I know that I had completely forgotten about its existence until my mother handed it to me and hinted that it might be something within my interests in love.


Paper Heart has the premise of the female comedian Charlyne Yi not believing in love, and seeking out answers by interviewing people about how they believe in love and what they have experienced of love.  The testimonies that are shown in this film are so beautiful and magnificent that you will feel your heart swell in excitement for love and its possibilities.

When a fictional plot between Charlyne Yi and Michael Cera is sprinkled throughout the film, both playing fictional versions of themselves, the movie loses some of its rawness.  These characters fall in love throughout Charlyne's journey to discover what love is in an awkward and superficial way that does not do any justice to the beautiful stories of love that you hear from the interviews.

This movie alone shows the juxtaposition of fake romance of fictional Hollywood stories and down to earth love stories we experience day to day. There is power and awe that real stories of real people falling in love that creates a stirring within our souls.  We have been fed romance from movies, advertisements, books, and magazines; enough materials to give someone a pretty good idea of love.  But is a fictional account of love the thing that really feeds our souls?

One of my favorite things to do is ask a couple how they met.  The sparks in each person's eyes, as they together recount and argue over the circumstance of how they met, is beautiful.  I want to see more of the fumbling and stumbling into love, and less of people falling love on screen because a piece of paper is telling them what to say and when to kiss.  No thanks, Paper Heart.

500 Days of Summer

Recently, I've been watching some movies that ask the kinds of questions that I ask, and the answers that they have come up with have been stirring in my mind and I want to hear your opinions on them!


500 Days of Summer

I am still not quite sure how to feel about this movie.  What do you think?  Do you like the characters?

I LOVE the music, fashion, and artistic aspects of this film.  I do not enjoy the idea that Tom's (Joseph Gordon Levitt's character) happiness is deeply rooted in his relationship with Summer.  I understand the terrifying and horrible situation of of a break-up, but I really worry about the destructive nature of Tom's character.  I want to go British on his ass and tell him to "Keep Calm and Carry On."


As a girl who doubts everything that I believe in, whether that's love, religion, or what the best condiment is to slather on a hotdog, I really do not feel comfortable with the character of Summer saying that the man she met and is going to marry is the One, and that she gets the feeling of love that she was never sure of with Tom.  The ending of the movie supports the idea of fate in love, and how you are meant to meet the right person, despite the setbacks of heartbreak.  This is a perspective that I don't really find inspiring, but instead confining in the idea of the one right person.  What if you lose that one right person to someone else (ie Tom's situation)?

Readers: What perspectives did you see in this film?

Sidenote: AWESOME complement to the film is this music/dance video:
Why Do You Let Me Stay Here--She and Him

Quote of the Week

“There comes a point when you just love someone. Not because they’re good, or bad, or anything really. You just love them. It doesn’t mean you’ll be together forever. It doesn’t mean you won’t hurt each other. It just mean you love them. Sometimes in spite of who they are, and sometimes because of who they are. And you know that they love you, sometimes because of who you are, and sometimes in spite of it.” ~Laurell K. Hamilton

5 Love Languages

After starting this blog, I realized that I also have awesome resources about relationships that I have sought out in the past semester.  One of my favorite books and quiz in this past year is The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman.  I found the book in my mother's office (she does premarital counseling) and absorbed the book within a couple of hours--it is helpful in understanding how to make someone feel loved and how you need to be loved.

I'm going to start talking about the 5 Love Languages, so if you don't want me to spoil it for you before you take the quiz, click on this link to the website and it will guide you to the quiz!
Find Out What Your Love Language Is!

This book maps out 5 specific ways of loving: Words of Affirmation, Receiving/Giving Gifts, Physical Touch, Acts of Service, and Quality Time.
There are two ways to interpret your love language; you can see it as the way that you express love to another person and/or as the way that you would like to be loved.  Most often, a person uses loving acts that are how they would like to be treated, so someone who is Acts of Service would mow your lawn to show you that they love you.  However, some people love the way that they think they should; someone might be Quality Time but they think they are supposed to give you gifts, so they seem like Receiving/Giving Gifts if they buy you flowers or jewelry to show their love.  The importance of this book is to show that people love and want to be loved in different ways, so the typical buying flowers for a date might not be the best way to a person's heart.

This book also examines situations where people can experience miscommunication if they speak different love languages.  For example,  I am Words of Affirmation and my mother is Acts of Service.  My mom knows that I love her if I put the dishes away, but if I don't, she might nag me to do them. Since I am Words of Affirmation, I shut down if someone nags me, so I get reclusive and do not put the dishes away.  This miscommunication creates anger and resentment, and over time, can create huge frictions in any relationship, especially an eros love.  Gary Chapman challenges people that are full of resentment and feel empty of love to spend 6 months encouraging their partner by using their partner's love language.  For example, a person that is Quality Time, whose spouse is Words of Affirmation, will write love letters and verbally say things they appreciate about their spouse, while their spouse will spend half an hour a day talking or hanging out with their Quality Time spouse without the interruption of TV, computer, or other technology.

What is your love language?  Do you think that knowing your love language can be helpful in relationships, friendship or love?  Would you use it within your romantic relationship?  Let me know at loudharmony58@gmail.com or comment on here!

A Piece of the Puzzle

I have a painting hanging up in my room that my brother completed as a prop for a school play (Almost, Maine---beautiful stories of love, similar to Love Actually) and this morning I woke up and really looked at this painting.

Everyone has a story to tell about love.  As I've been explaining this love exploration to family and friends, everyone seems excited to tell their story.  What would life be without these stories? It seems to me that life is the act of story telling and listening, as we are witnesses for one another.  This morning, when I looked at this painting,  I saw each of the colors and little shapes that build up into a heart as these collective stories that shape our view of what love is and how love is a part our lives.


During my last day in Columbus, I was able to meet up with a beloved professor of mine, Dr. Jacqueline Bussie.  Our conversations about love ripped open new enlightenments about love that I found so profound and moving; I left our lunch date in a fit of excitement and inspiration!

The main highlight of Dr. Bussie and I's discussion is the idea that love is not something that choses you; you choose to commit and support love.  Hollywood and Western society upholds an idea that there is that one person who is out there and is perfect for you.  Love is finding that perfect puzzle piece that matches you and how you want to be loved exactly.  This idea puts so much pressure on the need to feel something deep down when you meet the person you will spend the rest of your life with.  What happens if you meet an amazing person and you both connect well on an emotional level, yet you don't feel what you think you should be feeling?  For the sake of your own happiness, this is a dangerous expectation to set on the love that you feel.

Dr. Bussie and I agreed on a different viewpoint for love.  Love is committing to one person and saying that you will support them and love only them, not because you feel that this person is "The One," but because you have decided that this person is one you love.  Now this is an idea that I wrap my head around.  I am choosing to commit; I make the decision to love this person every day, and to love every bit of that other person.  Instead of searching for that perfect puzzle piece to precisely fit to me, I am picking up two puzzle pieces and molding them to fit together.

In a world full of sinners, how can we expect to find an absolutely perfect love between two humans?  I feel that appreciating that we have imperfections and differences and loving because of the differences rather than the "in spite ofs" is the heart of love.

This concept of love brings up the idea of love being two separate people that involves sharing two lives together that are not identical.  Love can often be viewed as a codependent relationship, or viewing the relationship as being important than the individuals.  This idea is perpetuated by stories like Romeo and Juliet that involve people choosing their relationship over their own lives.  In a world where love is valued higher than the person, and people view love as the end-all be-all, where is there room for actual human interaction? I think that's why I started this project;  I want to get to the root of love, so the day to day interactions of love that make up the relationships people have.  I have spent my life being fed stories about true love from movies, books, songs that highlight the butterflies and love at first sight and the unrelenting desire to find a soulmate.  Where is the reality?  Every story I hear from someone that I talk to,  I feel hopeful about the pragmatic approach to love.

Dr. Bussie talked about how love has been expansive in her experience.  As a person that is loved, she is able to go out into the world and share this love with everyone and in everything that she does.  The level of compassion that expands past the intimate eros love is a great concept.  Love is not limitless and does not lay solely between two people that love each other.  The love grows and pours out into the rest of the world.

Love as a relationship that is interdependent, with both people being mutually responsible and held accountable for a relationship is something that I want to strive for.  The decision to be held responsible for a commitment to love and share this other person with the world sounds so much more comforting than "I found the One! I've never felt this way before!"  I can be held accountable for my actions, and if I decide to commit to love someone fully and every day, I have control over my own actions.  I can choose to love someone for the rest of my life, and my decisions will be based upon that decisions from that point on.  I will make decisions that fit into the puzzle piece that I want to fit to.

Right now, having said goodbye to my boyfriend for an indefinite amount of time, the idea of long distance terrifies me.  I am definitely on the search for tips and advice about long distance, so if you have any insights, please let me know!

I discussed my fears about long distance with Dr. Bussie, and she talked about the idea of love casting out all fear, and the insecurities that she felt earlier in her relationship have been outgrown through the development of her and her husband's commitment to one another.  The reality of love, the day to day responsibility to another person is much sharper than the fuzzy fantasy of having an affair. It is perfectly good to give your spouse to the world and let the world enjoy their gifts.

Dr. Bussie told me about how her husband was offered a wonderful opportunity to travel to Singapore to work for a year, and many of their friends and family members advised them against separating themselves so soon after being married.  Dr. Bussie explained that she knew that they would be able to make it work because she wanted to see her husband flourish in ways that she could not even imagine.  Not to say that it wasn't a difficult time or that she didn't miss him inexplicably, but she saw that she had no greater gift than to share her husband with the world.  I find these last words quite profound, because the idea of a selfless love that is beyond one's own wants is something that not many can accomplish and appreciate.

"Meet Cute"--(term from The Holiday, because I just love romantic comedies)
Dr. Bussie met her husband when she was an underclassmen in high school.  He had just moved to Florida and was a new kid, so on a band trip that involved riding on a bus, her friends urged her to go sit with the new guy.  So as everyone else was making out or sleeping, Dr. Bussie got an earful from this guy, who she deemed as annoying.  They became friends throughout high school, and she grew to regard him as one of her best friends.  They kept in touch through college via letters and phone calls, while dating others, until coming to realize that they needed take a chance at exploring their mutual love.  Their story involves her husband, Matt, sending her letters every day for 60 days; which I find terribly romantic because I love letters in general, especially love letters.

I am so drawn to hearing how people meet and fall in love.  How do two people go from strangers to lovers?  It is so intriguing! I love the long-drawn out stories that take at least 20 minutes to tell.  If you have any stories that you would like to share, please feel free to comment or email me at loudharmony58@gmail.com.

The Unconscious Beginning of a Lovely Journey

“If you wait to do everything until you're sure it's right, you'll probably never do much of anything.”-Win Borden


How do you know?  Within this past year, I find myself asking this question to people that I encounter.  How do you know that you love someone?  How do you know that a person is right for you?  How do you know that this person is "The One?"
I began to search for my own answers to these questions  when I stumbled into love with a wonderful person.  I found myself fighting against love and hiding from the commitment of loving someone without a sense of fear.  I have found myself mesmerized with his himness, and I realized that I needed to actively search for questions and answers about infatuation, love, lust, marriage, sex, and everything in between.


I have found that the best way to understand something about this world is to feel and empathize with the experiences of others.  There can be no hatred where there is an inch of understanding; to wish to experience eros, or romantic, love, you need to love yourself and all of the people around you.  So in order to start a search to find my own answers about loving someone,  I began by sitting with bosses, family, co-workers, teachers, mentors, and friends and asking them the questions that I am sure everyone has thought.  How do you love yourself?  How do you love your significant other?  How did you fall in love?  How do you know that you love someone?

I know that there is no right answer to this question, and that is the beauty of these questions.  The diversity in which someone can experience and understand love is what makes the act of love so profound and inspiring.  I wish to seek out the questions that only one person can answer for themselves because each person's experience in this world builds a mosaic of what we know as life.


Having gained insight from listening to people tell their stories of love,  I quickly realized that this story would not end in my own understanding of love after empathizing with other people.  These stories are worth sharing, and the powerful words of acceptance, appreciation, and soul searching are not something that I should keep to myself.  If there is one thing that I can firmly believe that I am called to do in this world, it is to spread the love that I feel for myself and my loved ones, and to help other people see the love in this world.  I am here to share the stories of unique loves, so that I can help build the pieces of the colorful and awe-inspiring mosaic we call life in this world.