Abundant Affection - Arising Agitation?

I blame the media.

We're over indulged with love (or Hollywood's idealistic and lofty concepts of it) which causes us to harbor fantasies of what it should be. Then, when we're in the midst of this wonderful miracle, we feel it doesn't fit the transcendental image of what we've been made to believe it should really be.

Frackin' Hollywood.

Is love serendipitous? Is it fate? Has our Creator (if you believe we have one) chosen a person (or a couple throughout your life) for you? Perhaps a combination of these - a story which Hollywood never tells, yet a story we all know entirely too well. It's crescendi and diminuendi paint our souls with bright, vivid colors - and leave gruesome scars. It gives us a reason to live, and a desire to die. As one of my favorite songs says, "You say that you would die for me, but you must live for me, too." How breathtaking is that thought - that someone is living just to love you, and be loved by you.... or is that just Hollywood talking, again....

Falling in love seems to always be by mistake - it's something that happens before we realize what has happened to us. Remaining in love, however, is a choice, I believe. We choose to stay up late to listen to someone rant about their stressful day, or cry over something paining their heart. We choose to modify our behavior and responses in order to maintain peace and make another feel comfortable. We choose to say, "I do," committing our souls and hearts to another for our life.... or so we hope at the time.

This is the battle of love - accepting it for what it really is, and choosing to stick with it, and not become disenchanted with what we've been told it should be. This is something in which we ALL fail.

I feel we allow ourselves to become distracted by the static noise of our relationships - the minuscule BS that steers our attention away from our hearts, but to a dark place where we begin to pick and prod at one another for crap that really doesn't matter to the big picture. I think we've all had that special someone that you find to be attractive (even when they first wake in the morning), who is patient and understanding, who craves your attention and showers you in theirs, who accepts you for who you are, who stands up for you, who surprises you with gifts, who cares for you moreso than they do themselves, who trusts you, who genuinely seems to care for and love you, for whom your loins burn... yet we pick apart the relationship with mediocre annoyances - "I can't believe you dated THEM!" "You did WHAT with that person before me?!" "You're going to wear THAT?" "You want to leave?? Well, I don't." "You're too picky with your food!" "You snore." "I'm not in the mood tonight."

In the big picture of love, are any of these really important? Are we wasting our time by finding the negative in another person, or are some of us bound and determined in proving to ourselves that perfection doesn't exist outside of ourselves? I mean - you believe you're perfect, just like I do, right? It's the other person that's always wrong, who's failing in the relationship; who isn't responding in the manner in which you want to respond - or better yet, how YOU would respond. God/Allah/Angela Lansbury, why can't people be more like you and I?!

Learning that I'm NOT perfect... and that many times, I've been the one failing in the relationship... has, to gently say it, kicked my arse. I'm trying my hardest to stop listening to that static noise, and focus on the Om/Aum that is Love. I'm trying my hardest to stop tearing apart those beloved, giving me reason to not trust them, and thus proving my superiority and righteousness. I'm trying my hardest to love myself in the same capacity in which I know I can and want to love someone else.

I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle. Pissing in the wind, as my father said.

Or perhaps, if God is love, I just need more God in my life.....