love

The other evening, I drove up to a wedding reception with one of my temple-worker friends. It was a somewhat lengthy drive, and we had time to talk, which was nice. On the way home, she suddenly asked me this random question: “Have you ever been in love?”

I hesitated, thinking of MJ and other females I had believed I was “in love” with. I answered, “I think so.” It seemed like a safe answer. But she wasn’t finished asking questions. She probably thought I was being coy, but I was truly debating with myself about how to answer. Do I describe my girlfriends as if they were boyfriends, or do I just claim not to have had any? I have done that in other similar circumstances—told my stories and just changed the gender of the characters. But for some reason, I couldn’t fabricate this time. In the end, I dithered around her questions so much that she finally concluded I didn’t want to talk about it. I certainly wasn’t going to tell her the truth; that the majority of my love interests have been girls. Not because I was afraid of her judgment, now that I think about it, but because I wasn’t ready to fall in her estimation. To my temple-worker friends especially, I want to be who they believe I am. Not that I appear flawless to these people, but I set a certain standard for myself, and that’s how I want to appear to others. Perhaps if I knew this girl much, much better, I wouldn’t mind telling her the truth, because really I am not afraid of losing a friend over such a declaration. But I don’t see any reason to throw such information out for the masses to chew on. Seems pointless.

So the question remains: have I been in love, really? I have been twitter-pated, enamored, fascinated, captivated, infatuated, attracted… but are all these really the same thing? Maybe so.

Certainly I have loved. I have wanted the best for someone, in an unselfish way. I have had the desire to put someone else’s wants before my own. I have been willing to sacrifice and compromise for someone else’s benefit. I have felt great pain at the loss of someone from my life. That’s the great thing about us codependents; we love with great intensity. I have to agree with Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it, when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.