Never settle

All the theories in the world don't mean a thing sometimes.

Living takes a lot more than theories, or even tons of experience, unless that experience happens to be mine.  I am always the unknown factor in my life.

I realize most of us are just average people, but even average takes a while to mature.  All of us know people who are pretty mature at sixteen and all of us know people we don't think ever grew up. I try to keep my mind open, but there are things that I would have sworn I knew and understood as well as anyone and maybe better than many.  Imagine my surprise when I discover I am wrong.

I can tell you I never really understood love until I became a mother.  Loving my children is the most all encompassing, incredibly amazing experience of my life.  I never knew that kind of thing existed until I held my first baby in my arms.  From that point on I knew they would be the focal point of my existence.  I felt like I could do anything if it was in their best interests.  Whether or not that is actually true is a matter I am not qualified to decide, but it was how I felt.

I thought love was all about giving.  I thought it was always doing what was best for the other person, but mature love, the grown up version of what I feel for my children, has to be balanced.  That feeling has to come from both sides or it's no good.  There must be mutual respect, really caring and really wanting what is in the best interests of the other, otherwise it is still immature love and that never lasts.

Relationships can last, but love mutates into less savory things when it isn't balanced.  Faith becomes fear.  Fear that you don't really love me, or you don't love me enough or the same, or that I deserve better, or any of a million other little insecurities that eat up love like ants at a picnic.

I think deep enduring real love is pretty rare, but once it is experienced, no one would settle for less.