A new kind of love

If you don't love me, it does not matter, anyway I can love for both of us. -Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle), novelist (23 Jan 1783-1842)

Pining away for love has been the center of so many stories that I wouldn't know where to begin talking about them.  Yet it seems to me that this kind of love is a pretty egocentric sort of neediness.

In the best of all world's people love each other, each to the best of his or her ability, but one may continue to love the other long past the time that other has moved on.

Love is a complicated word meaning different things to different people and each person has their own personal needs.  Some of us need to be adored.  Some of us need to be adoring.  Others want the give and take of a more balanced relationship, but who is to say they are not all love?

I can appreciate what you feel, but the true test is what I feel. I can only feel what I feel.

If my love wants you to be truly happy then I want what is best for you -- and it might not be me.

I am still in love with you -- it's just a different way of loving -- and I don't mean self-sacrificing martyr type love, or a stalking type of love where I drive by your house and honk year after year. That's not love, it's obsession.

Allowing the beloved to move on into a life that does not include me; a life that is not burdened with the guilt of me; a life where two people continue on separate paths and forge ahead, seems to be the best gift one might give the other.

That grows a new kind of love altogether - one of compassion, understanding and forgiveness.