Three Special Words

Such power in the words “I Love You,” when said, what does it mean though? The Greeks had four words for love, we have but one. I love my friends, I love my family, I love my cats, I love my neighbor, I love my boyfriend. My question is, what does it mean when someone tells you they love you? My cat’s love me, as do my parrots, I think my fish both fear and worship me, though they know me not. When my boy friend tells me for the first time that he loves me, what does he mean? “You’re so cute, I love you.” Words that strike right to my heart, yet I have a hard time grasping how he means these words. Eros, Como, Philo, Agape… Every relationship starts with an Eros type love, “I love you for how you make me feel.” Is this what he means? I know I over question every thing, its part of my nature to question, and this is a me.

Love starts at Eros, its goal is agape. With time, trust grows bringing our love into a stage of Como, comrade, friend, companion. As trust grows and intimacy of the soul is reached we find Philo, brotherly love. With trust and intimacy built we reach to transcend our desires in love and learn the deepest of loves, agape ( “I love you for who you are”). When we stop loving someone for what we gain through them and start loving them for their very nature we achieve this Godly love. Its rarity makes it more valuable than any treasure. We call this person often our soul mate, for with them we know that we are safe, we are able to just BE and not worry about any gain or loss.

To ask the question, “How does my lover love me,” is selfish it shows that I am still on the plane of Eros merging with Como. Its been many years since I could utter those three special words to another man, a very long time. I have not trusted anyone enough to say them. To say them gives another person knowledge that I have chosen to give them a part of myself, and in turn a sense of power. Only to my family have I known Agape love, no matter what they do I will always love them, I will always hold them dear to my heart. In dating its rare that we get to this point. I’ve been there only once with another, the abuse he gave in return kept me from trusting others. Zeane will always be loved by me, but that love is now more of a concept than a reality. I have loved two that I chose to be my brothers, I long for letting go and loving again with out inhibition, without fear, and with that freedom knowing that warm dry embrace shared by two that know Agape.

The moon is waning, but my heart is waxing. Even in times that life has been taken from us, in times where loss seems continual, we can gain and grow. The promise of the moon is that she will always come back in full light, that though at times she leaves us in darkness, one day we will walk again in the night of this world and be able to see by her light, to walk freely once more without the fear of tripping over the unseen. May two hearts continue to merge, two whole individuals learn to walk hand fasted in the light of the moon.