What is love?

I must say that I have often wondered what love is... how do we love people. There seem to be so many different kinds of love. I have loads of sibling love. (It's pretty fierce too.) There are special people in my life that I have added to my arsenal of people I can call for any reason, and know that they will be there for me. I do have actual siblings. I have three "birth" siblings that I can count on for most anything, one adopted that adores me but is very very young, one step-sibling that would be there if I called and even drove to across a state line one time when Penny and I had car trouble and needed help.

I have some friends, not many but quality over quantity here, that if I just said I need you, they would drop everything and come running. They have and they'd do it again. And I'd do anything for them. Sometimes it doesn't even get to the asking point. When I say I'd fight for them, I mean it. I am very very passionate about people who are close to me. Sometimes to my detriment. I have learned over the years how to hold grudges and the like. Oh and I have a fuse like a pressure cooker.

I have recently added to this friends list. I call it love. Fierce and protective as a mother bear is how I feel about these friend/siblings.

Penny I hold above all others in a special place. Even when it is something hard to say outloud, or if I am depressed. My heart swells to overflowing with my love for her. She is my best friend. She was my best friend before she was ever my lover. She is the one I want to spend time with. I have been accused of being "up her butt" (figuratively, not literally). I crave time with her still, after all these years of marriage.

I want her to be happy. I want her to be proud of me, as I am of her. I love that everything we have, we have because we have worked for it. I love that we share Penny and that she feels comfortable enough to even let me make her face up sometimes although she is rapidly improving her skills to a degree I feel like she won't even want that soon.

I love the magical, dizzy feeling I get when we kiss. I never thought it would last this long. I believe now that it will always be there.

I don't know how everyone who couples up doesn't have this. I will admit I had relationships before that I thought were love and in fact I think were a kind of love, but not this heady, wonderful ever after kind of love that we share. (ok, so I am not inside her head but I'm pretty sure she feels the same way)

I love that I know for sure that we are not just together because it is easier. I love that being used to one another and it just being easier to stay together isn't what keeps us together.

I want everyone to have what we have. I think it is worth waiting for and worth fighting for, and I don't see why people get married for less than what they always wanted.

I also want you to know that as wonderful as it all is, we sometimes disagree. I turn into a shrieking harpy that is terrified her spouse wants to leave her. There is no real reason for this, I blame it on being a "woman" I really hope no one takes offense to that. Even when it happens I can usually somewhere in my head be found screaming at myself to be still and quiet and go away and stop being ridiculous and irrational.

It's important for me to say this so that you know I am real, I am human. We are a real couple and though we are so very happy most of the time, we are not actually "perfect". I don't trust married couples who claim they never fight. Passion is a powerful thing and it comes out in the craziest ways.

Love encompasses all these things to me. The loving, the fighting, the passionate crazy anger. I fight with my siblings (both birth and self-imposed). But I would never let anyone else fight with them without jumping in with both feet.

I have had many violent and terrible daydreams about how to treat people who have in the slightest way hurt those I care about and secretly fear one day I'll be put in prison for ripping someone's hair out by the roots (this would be really messy).

I pray for you all to know unconditional love, and to be able to accept that love for what it is. Know that first you have to love yourself. Accept yourself, every part. Sorry I'm feeling so sappy this evening.