True Love...

A few days a go, I read where a friend had commented on one of their friends' post about “true love”. I don't remember the exact post but it said something to the effect of “true love can only exist when a man and woman are truly committed to...” blah blah blah. While I get what they were trying to say, it made me stop and think about what they DID say...a man and a woman.

As I have gotten older and my views on life (and people for that matter) have expanded, I have come to realize that true love is something that really does know no boundaries. I have also come to realize that as many things that I do know about in life, love is something that still confounds me. I still haven't fully grasped the power and the magnitude of the lines it has crossed and continues to cross each and every day.

All around me, I am surrounded by people who prove this on a daily basis. Within my own family and close friends (people who are like family), I am lucky enough to know couples and individuals who have crossed these boundaries and challenged everything I knew to be true about love. From inter-racial couples, to couples from completely different religious backgrounds and cultures. From same sex marriages, to couples, or perhaps I should say groups, that are part of polygamy relationships. From people who have years separating their ages, to couples who are mere days apart in age. Each and every one of these individuals have forced me to view love...true love...from a whole new perspective.

The thing is, there is nothing new about this perspective at all. From the beginning of time, people have come together from different religions, cultures and races and formed relationships that have stood the test of time. People have been involved in same-sex relationships, as well as polygamist relationships, for as far back as we can tell. So why is it, that each time one of these relationships is presented, do people find the need to poke, prod and ponder it as if it is some new specimen being presented for the first time? Why does society, as a whole, feel there is some unwritten right to place judgement on any of these relationships?

According to Merriam-Webster, love is defined as:

a (1) : strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties <maternal love for a child> (2) : attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3) : affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests <love for his old schoolmates>

b : an assurance of affection <give her my love>

At no point anywhere, does it put ties on this wonderful, beautiful and absolutely amazing emotion. It doesn't say love can only exist between opposite sex or confined to only two people or people of the same religion or race or culture. So why do we?

I don't have the answers and I'm not really sure anyone does. All I do know is that I have come to realize more and more, just how wonderful and powerful an emotion it truly is. I have come to understand that love really does know no boundaries and that to try to put boundaries on something so amazing and wonderful would by the like take a beautiful butterfly, pinning it's wings to a corkboard and then tucking it away in a dark corner, never to be appreciated for the beauty it possesses.

What have you learned about true love?