Is Love Enough?

I knew it was going to happen. We all know, don't we?  The downswing.

My last post was so bursting with positive energy, part of me didn't want to follow it up with anything else that wasn't equal in its I-am-confident-superwoman, it's-all-gonna-be-all-right brilliance.  But life is life.  I'm no less confident, no less sure that it is going to be all right per se, but I am sort of pensive today and maybe sort of questioning my present emotional state of being.

First of all, what I'm sort of wondering is if I've ever been in love.  I mean, I think I know what it is, and what I think it is, or rather, what I feel I know about it, is that it is not a "feeling."  It is not some magical movie moment where a bunch of tingly feelings and rainbows and unicorns all converge in some warm and fuzzy fireworks display.  Rather, I'd like to think of it as a knowing.  A confidence.  I believe that saying "I love you" is less how you feel about someone and more what you know about someone.  I know who you are.  And I love who I know you are.  It's something akin to a fact rather than a declaration.

I see it as appearing plain as day.  Like frustratedly looking for your keys (I do this quite often) only to find them in the most obvious place that you somehow overlooked.  There they are, plain as day.  They were there all along, waiting.

Have I experienced this?  I'm afraid to believe that I have.  Because if I have, then . . . it puts me in a tough spot at present.

I'm too old for absolutes.  When it comes to these matters, that is.  Nothing is set in stone.  All I'm saying is that right now, it's a little difficult for me to keep calm and carry on, as it were.

Aside from the am I/aren't I conundrum, second of all, is the question of whether it's enough.  What I mean is, even if you know for sure that you love someone, that you love each other, is it enough for a relationship to work?  Is knowledge of each other and each simply loving who the other person is enough?  As unromantic as it sounds, I don't believe so.

If a partnership is going to work, then each person also has to be able to meet the other person's needs.  Let me qualify that and say that no human being can meet all of another human being's needs.  I don't think one person is meant to meet all of another person's needs.  But the most important ones have to be met if it's going to work for the long haul.  Spiritual, emotional, financial, intellectual, sexual . . . these are just a few examples of the types of needs, that, if not met by both parties, could possibly make a partnership a total no go.

Some things can't be fully understood until after you're married, I suppose (if you're living a Christian life, which I am striving to do), but for the most part, you know good and well what you're signing up for.  Some people just ignore the signs that important needs won't be able to be met.  Some people go into things believing that love is enough.

Regardless of how I'm feeling right now, I know that, in the end, it isn't enough for me.