It's been a while...

So.. I'm back.

I'm going to try to get back into blogging again. It's good for my soul, to put my thoughts down onto "paper".

*Heartache

I've really been struggling lately with the concept of love. I understand what love is, I can see why love is so powerful, I get that. I believe in a thing called love! *Forgive me, the reference to European hard rock was too inviting.* But I digress, I can see where love is blossomed. I can see where love is lost. I can trust in the truth of love. What I struggle with is holding onto love, when it only causes pain. the heartache of love.

Love can be such a beautiful thing. Love is so often an overpowering emotion. Our hearts are built to love. We are designed to love, with such unfathomable desire. It can be all-consuming. I know its true, I've been consumed with love. I still am consumed with it. I am in love. I don't shy away from saying that, and I would gladly challenge anyone who says that I couldn't know what love really is because I am "only a child". I'm 24, almost 25 years old, and if what I feel; is not love? then please explain to me what love is, if I'm wrong.

My heart has been aching for months now. I am and was so in love with someone, that my world was consumed by her. She was my passion, she was my desire. She is everything that I could have ever hoped and dreamed of finding in someone. She is something so precious to me.

For those of you who know me, you know that I am very much a hopeless romantic. I am sentimental. I am sweet. I am caring. I am the boy next door. I am the boy that every mother wants their daughter to date, and I'm the boy that every father respects. It's who I am, it's how I was raised. So, when I met her, I fell in love with who she was. I fell in love with her heart. Not the separate parts of her body. I fell in love with her heart. Which is why my heart aches to not have her around. My heart connected with her heart. It is a deeper love then what the world considers to be love.

The world says love is an emotional response. Psychology says love is a cognitive and social phenomenon. Biology says love is a mammalian drive, much like hunger or thirst. Tests have been done, where those infatuated by love show similarities, in brain scans, to those with a mental illness. So now love is an illness. Love shows similar brain patterns to those struggling with an addiction. *I would agree with that statement to an extent. Love is an addiction.

Yet, based on the culture that we live, are we as a whole good with dealing with addiction? No. How many drug addiction meetings, meet daily? How many doctors have to see addicts walk through their hospital doors daily? How many clinics specialize in drug and alcohol addictions? I hate to use it as an example, but Tiger Woods. How many men or even women are like Tiger, and had to admit themselves to a clinic for being addicted to sex. Sex being so closely tied to love. Our culture doesn't understand addiction and this just leads to our culture not understanding love.

Love is an addiction. I was addicted to this girl. I still am. The difference is that my addiction is healthy (to an extent). I crave having her in my life. I desire to hold her close. I yearn to see her smile. I am addicted. My heart aches for her.

Now that sounds worse then it actually is. My addiction is true and real, and I know how to deal with it. It's not a struggle to keep it in check. Love is not supposed to be held down and controlled. Love should be freeing. Love should be unhindered. Love should be shared. That is what my addiction is all about, I want to share the feelings that I have. I don't want to hold them under lock and key, which is why my heart aches.

Like I said earlier, I am a hopeless romantic. I believe that love conquers all. I don't know how I could love anyone else the way that I love her. I believe that the love I have is for a reason. I believe that it has a purpose. I believe that my love will not go unrewarded. I have held onto this love for such a long time, I believe that it is what I am supposed to do.

I guess, through that long-winded venting of mine, I have just one question for you.

Do you love?

There are so many facets to love. Parental love. Brotherly love. Plutonic love. There are so many ways to love. So I ask again, do you love? Are you addicted to that love?