Ways We Love
I used to be a big believer in love, growing up on Disney movies and Sailor Moon. I made my grandmother tell me the story of Rapunzel every time I went to her house and I always wanted to be that fourth grader that got married on the soccer field during recess. Since fourth grade, I’ve come to my senses. And I’ve come to realize that there’s no such thing as the kind of love we see in the movies or in the Little Mermaid, or in the romance books we read. Unfortunately, the Bella/Edward situation is as likely to happen as Romeo and Juliet, which is almost definitely impossible.
I’ve grown up a lot since fourth grade, I mean it’s almost been a decade for goodness sakes! And I’ve learned that we don’t just love people in the “happily ever after” way. In Greek, there are four translations of the word love. Agape is the brotherly love. It’s how we love our families and the best of friends. Philia is a friendly love. “Love your neighbor as yourself,” as Jesus put it so well. He means love them in a friendly way, that shows compassion and generosity. Then, there’s Eros, the passionate, “I must have you now” kind of love. It’s not love so much as it is lust. And there’s the less familiar Storge, which is how I feel about my brother’s sometimes. It’s like, you have to love them even though what they do makes you want to hate them.
C.S. Lewis even wrote a book about these four loves. He describes agape as unconditional, philia as friendship, storge as affection, and eros as romance. I look at them similarly. And this is just me, growing up with the bible slamming baptist preacher talk about these things. The preacher’s words are more of a drone to me, words that make sense, but hold no deeper meaning, especially when it comes to this thing called love. I think it’s the smallest people that can love the most. Have you ever noticed that a four year old will give away their whole heart no matter what anyone else has done, while a thirty year old woman has to have something in return, or it must benefit her in order for her to love something.
It’s hard to be the four year old girl, especially as we grow up because the more we see and experience, the more we lose faith in humanity, the more we want to give up hope. But the world is only as good as you make it out to be. If you’re negative about everything, that’s what you’re contributing to society, and that’s how society will be. But if we’re showing love, and I don’t mean lust or just generosity… I mean unconditional, “I will do anything to help you because you’re my friend no matter what you do to me” love. If we put that into the universe, that’s what it can become.
Our society, twisted and screwed up thanks to the media and all the drugs of our era, is like a plant. If we put it in bad soil, or give it polluted water, or not enough sunlight, it’s no wonder it’s twisted. If we want there to be good in the world, we have to put good back into it, and absorb the bad like rubber, letting it slip away into nothing while we continue to show others love.
I’m having a hard time keeping faith in humanity right now. My friends are friends when they need me there for them. And when they try to comfort me if they know I’m sad, it feels like they do it for the wrong reasons. And this past week, I’ve been out of school. No texts, a couple calls from a friend to help with her project. I’ve tried to get in touch with people, but they’re busy I guess. My parents are gone for a good part of the day and my brothers live in the basement. My sister is always staying with her friends because her school is far away. So, I’ve been at home, by myself for a week. Sure, I’ve gone to choir practice, and went to an opera, but that’s about six hours of doing something within a time span of about nine days. Isn’t that pitiful.
It’s been especially hard for me to deal with my sister. She is literally the golden child. She was the cheerleader in high school, blond hair blue eyes, “every guy’s wet dream” pretty. And then, there’s me. Brunette, gray eyes, short, stout. There’s a big difference, ok? Well, she has been spoiled her whole life and so she’s a little prissy sometimes. Let’s put it this way… She has no problem telling me to clean my room when her’s is worse. It’s not hypocritical… but it really is. She was getting dressed tonight for an opera that she and my mom are going to. Poor thing is sick and spent the last hour taking a nap. She looked so pitiful. I helped her pick out a dress and shoes. While she did her hair, I went to work trying to fix the straps on her heels. I chipped off the nail polish that I spent an hour working on today. I had to remove all of it. And I wasn’t even mad. I’ve been furious all day about how ignored and alone I feel. And I don’t mean to be sounding spoiled and selfish, but you try spending a week stuck in your house with no car and no communication with anyone but your parents after six every night… and the dog and cat.
And while I pulled off my nail polish, I realized how much I wanted to help my sister have a good time tonight at the opera. And I hoped she felt pretty because she is, and how I wished she weren’t sick so she could have a great time and not have to blow her nose every five minutes. And I realized that me helping her and worrying about my sister, who is nine years older than me, is how I love her. It’s not when we’re laughing together about stupid stuff, or when I remind her to do something over a text. I love her by caring for her when she’s too preoccupied to care for herself. I love her by telling her the no nonsense truth even when she hurts my feelings.
And I’m having the worst time trying to figure out how I love my best friends. And I’m having an even worse time trying to figure out how they show their love for me. I’m sorry, but those stupid little heart things people do with their hands is not a way of showing affection. And when I’m sitting in class by myself and they don’t notice I’m alone or they do notice but don’t stop by to say hello, it doesn’t seem like they care too much about showing their love. But I will still love them. Because I am determined to love Agape style. That’s the way Jesus teaches us to love. We are supposed to love fully and unconditionally. And when we love during the hardest of times and especially when we don’t want to and we really want to hate the person, that’s when we know we’re doing it right.
These are the ways we love.
