What Love Is

Sometimes I think we all have this notion that love is "like" in an extreme degree. But it's so much more than that. Love is a conscious decision that you will always be there for someone--even when you don't like them. That applies whether you're talking about romantic love or friend love.

Right now, my struggle is with friend love. I have a friend who I love very much. But right now, I don't like him at all. My friend has become a mean, hurtful person and I don't know why. He's hurt me worse than just about anybody has ever hurt me, and he's hurt someone else I care about even more than he's hurt me. I've seen him once in the past four months, for 15 minutes. I miss him so much, but at the same time, I have absolutely no desire to see him. As much as that sounds like a contradiction, it isn't, because I'm talking about two different people. I miss the man he was, and I don't want to see him as the man he is.

I never thought I could ever say that I didn't want to see him, but I don't. And it hurts. It feels like my best friend has vanished.

So this is what love is--if my friend called me up tonight and wanted to hang out, I couldn't do it. But if he called me and said he needed a kidney and I was a match, I'd be there in a second. I have made a conscious decision to love him, and there's nothing he can do to change that.