What Love Looks Like

I was out with a few friends tonight in Brooklyn and one of my friends just found out that her boyfriend of about a year cheated on her while she was away. She said that something that has been hard for her to come to terms with in her relationships is not comparing them to her parents' relationship, because they are very much in love. She said she grew up seeing that love was hard work because her parents argued, and worked at things, and supported each other through the bad times. She worries that she will never have a love like they do.

Another friend in this conversation, we'll say Kevin told her that his parents are also very in love and he has the same fear. He told her something his mom told him once when he expressed this fear to her. She said that his love will look different from hers because it will be a different kind of love, but that he has the good fortune of knowing what love looks like because he saw it between them growing up. She told him not to compare his relationships to theirs, but to use what he knows about love to find someone.

I thought it was very sweet that Kevin shared this with my friend, but it also made me very sad to hear two friends discuss their functional families. I envied the open communication Kevin had with his mom and the idea of growing up in a home without a distorted love. I know all families have thier problems and that there is pain in any family or relationship, but I also know that there is a stark contrast between the type of home I grew up in and a home with love and without alcoholism. There was and is love in my family, but it has always been distorted, fleeting, and usually unfulfilling. I am truly happy for my friends that they have that model, just as much as I'm sad for me that I don't. I struggle with love and I have to say that I don't know what it looks like. And that's okay. It's another thing to explore. I'll add it to the list. And it's kind of a relief to think that whatever relationships I've had previous to this were not love. So whatever it is, it can only be better, right?