As we grow and change, so does love

Love is beautiful in more than a million ways.

And if you ask me, one of the main reasons for that is its dynamic nature. The fact that love is never static, but it constantly changes as we continue to change inside over the years. And the way we see and define love also alters with the wisdom and experience that growing older brings.

In the beginning -let us say in your teens- love is just a game. An addictive game where one simple rule exists.  The more you lose, the more you become obsessed with it. The naivety and restlessness of your youth make you run after all -not going to happen- cases, not being afraid of getting hurt in the process. Real love in your mind is equal to a bunch of hot gazes, holding hands until they feel numb and those persistent butterflies in your stomach. And as intense as this feeling might look, it is also evanescent. Because in the end, it seems that at this tender age you are always ready to move on to the next love adventure, almost at the exact same moment when you discover that the previous one is not going to work.

Then, by the time you enter the third decade of your life, love becomes your number one priority. You are still young and full of energy, positive and optimistic. You see love as your chance of getting a piece of the fairytale in your life that becomes less fun as you grow older. So, you rush into love stories, without hesitating or holding back, giving everything that you have and believing in each one’s happily ever after. Love, at this period of your life, hides in exaggerations and overstatements of your feelings, not being willing to spend a minute without him/her and being ready to change everything about yourself to please the one you are with.  And of course,  in that crazy sense that you can achieve anything by your lover’s side, since you believe in love’s magic powers of fixing everything, overcoming all obstacles and eventually making the world go round.

Then, things become a little less intense but do not consider that a bad thing. It is just that in your thirties, love starts looking like a trip into safer waters. After experiencing hot, crazy, energy-sucking, and in many cases self-destructing love in your younger years, you finally reach that point when you begin to understand what real love should be like. You make more careful choices now, you become unwilling to change your beliefs and habits for anyone and you try to protect yourself from getting seriously hurt from your feelings by holding a little something for yourself. You believe that real love means finding someone that you can share pieces of your true self with, someone that wants you exactly as you are and never stops trying to find the best in you.

Finally, as you reach the next decades of your life, your perception of love transforms and reshapes and in the end, it does not look anything like the adventure it once has been. Then, it may seem to you that love loses its red color, excitement and this unstoppable rush as years pass you by. You know that is probably true anyway. For most people, at least.

But, you must keep in mind that, despite continuously changing its form, love never loses its true magic.

So, whether love means taking each other’s breath away in your twenties, taking care of each other in your fifties or simply keeping company to and standing by each other in your seventies, love never loses its magic power of making our lives more beautiful.