It’s not the feeling you get when you connect with someone and experience that complete euphoria that comes from the chemical reaction in your body around that person.
That’s infatuation.
It’s not the tightness in your chest when you are away from that person and have the constant urge to talk to, text or see them.
That’s obsession.
It’s not the desire to climb inside someone’s mind and know everything about them, all their stories, all their hurt, and all their joy.
That’s fascination.
It’s not the heat of desire that leaves you burning for them every second of every day, and ties you into messy knots when those urges go unsatisfied.
That’s passion.
It’s not the need to complete another person, become part of their world and entwine yourself in their life so tightly that you sometimes don’t see where they stop and you start.
That’s captivation.
It’s not the moments wasted when the chemicals dissipate, the urges wane, the knowledge is complete, the fire burns out and the relationship you share becomes dry, brittle and hollow.
That’s life.
It’s not making food, or cleaning the house, or changing the oil in the car, or buying clothes for the kids, or washing the dishes for the tenth night in a row.
That’s caring.
It’s not arguing or making up or going to counseling or turning your life upside down to find the reason you’re unhappy.
That’s marriage.
No.
Love isn’t a thing or feeling or action.
It’s not chance. It’s not fate. It’s not required. It’s not luck.
It’s just not.
It is the thing you control, during all of these moments that it’s not,
It is a decision you must make, every waking moment of your life.
It is a choice you have, in the good when you can’t imagine another way, and the bad when you don’t think you can hold on.
Love is simply a choice!
Choose wisely.
MelDouleur.com 
This is perfect. I tell kids all the time that love is a choice when all the fun dissipates and life intrudes. I agree: choose wisely.
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I’m actually looking forward to those lessons. All the lessons I wish my parents had thought to teach me!
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I’m glad I learned it in my 20s after only ONE failed marriage.
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OMG this is completely profoundly amazing. I LOVE this!! Xx
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Oh Caroline, I’m glad you liked it!
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Your definitions are phenomenal!
I see love as a basic underlying presence in each scenario be it right or wrong, healthy or sick, warranted or unwarranted. Not a choice — but you can chose to follow or honor that love, or not.
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Reblogged this on foreverdreamingoflove and commented:
This whole post is so very true! Hopefully you don’t mind me reblogging.
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Not at all!!
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Thank You!
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“Choose wisely.” Such a simple truth!
Love this, Mel.
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Good post! Sometimes we don’t “feel” love but it always can be a choice. That is the only way a marriage can survive. The traditional vows– better or worse, sickness or health… And not just when it’s convenient or “feels” right.
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Well said… Very well said
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(((Awhoooo)))
to love, always love
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Well I did enjoy the piece, I do have a slightly different view. I break love into two categories; a kind of Buddhist love where one does not necessarily expect love in return and romantic love where the love can grow as the interaction between the two ‘in love’ can build into something much greater over time. My love for someone can be very deep, perhaps even unrequited and it can never blossom into something truly magnificent. Romantic love has that potential: so must they both choose?
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The point is, yes, you still choose. Because love is devotion of oneself at a very base level… be it romantic love, parental love, or fellow human love. Just as one chooses to hate, one also chooses you love.
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But still within a couple, no matter how one individual wishes to choose; if the other does not respond at the same level, even after a decade or two of ‘love’: it can all fall apart like a house of cards.
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Absolutely, BGG. EVERYONE has to choose love!! Both parties. Even then… I never said love was enough…
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But what about the love that I carry as Christ carried the cross; the love for her, the one that cannot be; it burns, gnaws and eats at me but I have no choice: just as Prometheus had no choice chained and having his liver ripped out and devoured over and over and over again. I have tried to drown it, bury it, cast it asunder; but still I will awaken at 4:37am to its knowledge. I am constantly haunted by her visage as silhouettes of lesser beings taunt my soul: I wish I had the choice not to love her.
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And he stole my whole heart, he left not even a fraction behind. He took away my choice and made me a slave to that gaping hole inside my chest. I try to fill it up, I try to feed the void, but nothing and no one quite fits inside the dark, cold, empty space left, when he stole my whole heart.
I know that wish, sweet Billy. Choosing NOT to love is a whole different subject, indeed. Perhaps another poem, another day. I’m sorry you are hurting… The pain of unrequited love is far worse than many others. It doesn’t fade as quickly as other kinds of hurt, that is for sure. ❤
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But even if it could fade, would I really want it to?
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So it is interesting that “Love” induced two reactions from me. The first was a philosophical approach on the subject vis a vis the concept that you proposed of love being a choice. My second take was the result of white hot irons having branded forever on my psyche an emotion (passion) from which I cannot hope to escape: for lord I have tried. Love … more than a four letter word: eh wot?
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I think when we use the word love it needs to be prefaced with the word unconditional so we understand more fully what love really is. It is not love unless it’s unconditional, otherwise it’s one or more of what you’ve described. Love transcends and goes beyond. When two people share unconditional love then you can ebb and flow together with giving and receiving without the burden of wondering if you’ll make it through. Unconditional love grounds you.
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