Unconditional

"I'll give you countless amounts of outright acceptance if you want it
I will give you encouragement to choose the path that you want if you need it
You can speak of anger and doubts your fears and freak outs and I'll hold it
You can share your so-called shame filled accounts of times in your life and I won't judge it
(and there are no strings attached to it)"

The above song, to me, is the best example of unconditional love. What is unconditional love? To me, it is love that is not self serving, love that puts others above itself because it loves them more than it loves itself. According to wikipedia, Unconditional love is a term that means to love someone regardless of the loved one's qualities or actions. The paradigm of unconditional love is a mother's love for her newborn.

Unconditional love is often used to describe the love in an idealized romantic relationship. It may sometimes also be used to describe love between family members, comrades in arms and between others in highly committed relationships.

Not everyone in a relationship will achieve this selfless sense of love, and moreso, in order to love someone else unconditionally, you have to love your SELF unconditionally.

There are 7 stages of love. Not every relationship will hit those 7 stages, and relationships can stop at any place along the list. You can pretty much describe every relationship this way, as everyone will be somewhere in one of those stages.

These are the seven stages of love:

ATTRACTION -
Attraction can be defined as something, which is more than friendship and is a step towards getting ready for a relationship. Now attraction is of two types:

a. Physical Attraction - happens when your body reacts to another person. Heart rate increases; temperature rises, palms get sweaty; stomach flutters; throat tightens; etc. This is what will tell you that you are ready for the first contact and also whether you are comfortable in the company of the other person.

b. Emotional Attraction - develops next if the circumstances are right. After being drawn to a person physically, you then begin to come closer. If you find you have things in common -- hobbies, ideologies, career, education, or some other common ground -- then an emotional attraction starts to form. Sometimes an emotional attraction can occur even when a physical attraction does not. And in this case, the bond will be stronger between the two who connect, since no preconceived notions based on physical appearance has occurred.

INTIMACY
Intimacy is something, which a person experiences when you learn to trust and believe your lover. It is a close association with another person of the deepest nature. You share you thoughts, feelings, and dreams. You feel free to discuss everything with this person and you are absolutely comfortable in his company. Thus intimacy develops gradually. If you can't establish intimacy with your partner, your relationship may work for a while, but is unlikely to endure throughout the years. Intimacy is actually the path to a true, healthy and beautiful relationship.

PASSION
The third stage is passion, which basically means a desire for another person, which has grown to an intensity that can't be ignored. This is often where an emotional relationship turns into a physical relationship. The passion stage is very important. For from here you will understand the true meaning and nature of your relationship. If there is no passion then its best to let go but if there is passion in your relationship then it is time to go on to the next stage.

ROMANCE
Romance is the essence of a relationship. Without romance your love life will not exist. Romance is the true identity of your love. It brings out your true self and helps you be a better lover, husband and partner. Romance is a celebration of the life you live as part of a couple. It springs naturally and originates from within your heart. It makes you do things that you possibly couldn't have imagined to do otherwise. It shows you who you are and reminds you of the role you play in a relationship. Romance is not responsibility but it is caring about your responsibilities towards your lover and partner. Romance is the appreciation of two people who are celebrating the lucky coincidence that they found each other.

COMMITMENT
The last stage is commitment. This is when you know that you want to spend your whole life with this person you love and you can do anything for him. It is when your whole world just revolves round your lover and you take a pledge to remain true to your mate throughout good and bad times, be by his side whenever he needs you.

Each of the relationships I am in, whether it be with my husband, my oso, or my cicisbeo, are in a different part of this scale above. And yet, I care about them all above myself. I keep going back to love, and I feel like if I do that, people are going to think that this post is in the same vein as "methinks thou dost protest too much" but, really, I need to say these things, and either I say them to my mother in law, who already thinks I'm crazy, or I say them to my partners who have already heard them many many times. So with that, I hope I have given you something else to think about. I will leave you with what is probably my favorite scripture. It is from 1Corr. 13:4-8:

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

Airplanes

"Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars?
I could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right now" --B.o.B. ft Hayley Williams, Airplanes

Many people are familiar with the concept of wishing on a star, that if you make a wish on a shooting star, it will come true. No one quite knows where this superstition comes from, whether it is the beauty and relative rarity of shooting stars, or humanity's eternal fascination to the heavens, or if it is the likeness of shooting stars to an angel, so thinking of a wish on a shooting star as offering up a prayer.

I have wished on a star often enough in my youth, to wish for one boy or another to like me, to pass my algebra final, that my parents would stop fighting and screaming at each other. Silly wishes, things that really don't matter much in the long run. Recently, I've been making some late night treks into the desert area north of the city that I live in, and on those treks, I take a new friend with me. We've been spending time together getting to know each other, just laying in the back of his truck cuddling and chatting and looking at the stars that you can't see well enough within the city limits. One of these last times we went out there, the above song was playing on the radio and we saw something that may or may not have been a shooting star. Hell, it could have been an airplane for all we know, but it was that moment, and without saying anything, we both looked up and made a silent wish.

New relationships are fragile like infants, and need careful nurturing. Really, all relationships need careful nurturing. But there comes a time when you get comfortable with your partner and you stop trying as hard. This is my promise now, that I will keep trying.

Airplanes

Cool The Engines

"Now I like takin' off
Don't like burnin' out
Every time you turn it on
Makes me want to shout

We keep getting hotter
Movin' way too fast
If we don't slow this fire down
We're not gonna last

Song of the day brought to you by a conversation or six I was having with one of my lovers. Despite taking this relationship slower than I ever have, apparently we've been going faster than some would like to see.

While on the one hand, I can see where they are coming from, and I don't want this to be a huge hot burning bonfire that burns out too quickly, I also don't want this to just be a candle flame, either (although candles are fun for other things).

Im happy with the speed my relationship has been going, but for the sake of my sanity (lest one of my partners throw a wrench into things) I will slow down. I feel like my sanity (what little there is of it) is balanced on a tripod, and it would be a simple matter of kicking one of those legs outwards to destroy the tenuous hold I have on it.

Really, what I would like to do is shout at the top of my lungs announcing to the world how much I love this man... And I have, in the car on the way back from a trip out into the desert... At 1am, in the middle of nowhere, no one can hear what you scream in the dark... #justsayin

Boston's Cool The Engines