by K Scappace

Created on: March 27, 2009

True love takes time, nurturing, and commitment to grow. It is your heart's home and the place where your soul feels safe. Through heritage, true intimacy, and friendship it blooms in our lives to form a haven.

Perhaps you are not used to thinking of true love in a parental context. Yet, the first time we experience true love in our lives is as an infant. Our mother feeds us, changes our diaper, cleans when we spit up, and paces the floor with us as we cry. She does not love us blindly, for that would keep her from knowing what we need. As we mature, our father teaches us, plays with us, and picks us up when we fall. If he loved us blindly, he could not recognize when our limitations placed us in danger. The truest measure of any love is how much growth it allows and not how much need it fosters.

Infatuation and obsession ignore faults and weaknesses. They do not allow one to be human. They force the recipient into a position to be less than real. It is only with the honesty of true intimacy that we can move beyond the initial blindness to a true and abiding regard for another.

True intimacy comes from living and working together to build a life. How can you truly love someone when you do not honestly know that person? Consider the romances of your teens. Did any of them survive a broken promise, the interference of others, or a separation? Unless you were very lucky, the answer is probably not.

Yet true love will withstand the broken promise. We forgive the fault or weakness that leads our partner off the path we are trying to pave together. This is the big difference: true love forgives it does not excuse. Infatuation makes excuses. It blames someone or something other than our partner for his or her acts.

Jealousy is insecurity projected onto our partner, a poison that forces our partner to exceed a standard of behavior we cannot meet. When we truly love another, we acknowledge our insecurities and accept that no one is perfect. We can allow our partner to grow without fear of them growing away from us.

As adults, when we experience true love, we build a home. Not a building of stone or wood, or even a tent pitched on the roadside but an emotional refuge. We do not seek to bar the door against our partner's leaving. Rather, we assure our partner that when they must go away for a time it will always be safe to return.

Our refuge requires friendship to take root. We do not expect more of our friends than we are willing to give. We do not require perfect agreement. We encourage debate and foster growth while encouraging their faith in their abilities. We help them expand their horizons.

True love does all that and takes the extra step. It nurtures our growth so we can blossom. Conflict becomes a stepping-stone in our path to expand our horizons and true love cheers us along. If time or circumstance should take our love away, we are able to cherish the time we had rather than mourn the time we lost.

No, true love is not blind. It is better than that.

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