What is Love, and am I in it?

Love seems to be this force that destroys you little by little while also making a brand new person out of you. That’s what I have noticed. I remember being young and having NO IDEA what love was. To me, love was a word that was meaningless. It was a word that I would say to young women to let them know that I wanted to “get with them.” I was guilty of saying those words without meaning them. My first girlfriend told me she loved me after 3 days of dating her. And so that she wouldn’t be alone in saying and to avoid uncomfortable silence, I said it to her as well.
Needless to say that wasn’t true love. To me, true love is what I have been experiencing for the past 6 years. It’s funny because it’s not what it looks like on TV; it’s a bit more complex than that. It’s more than just a simple feeling, a one time decision, an emotional connection, or a physical encounter. And it’s different from the clichés and at the same time includes them all. Love is this love-hate, fight make-up, fun-boredom, agreement-disagreement, confusion-clarity, smiles-cries, too much-not enough, firm decision - trial and error process that makes you realize that there is this one person in the world that you begin to live for, breathe for and you would surely die for.
It doesn’t start off that way… love grows. It matures off of decisions to put it first; off of choices to put this persons needs and wants ahead of your own. You start off feeling like you’re in the relationship because they make you happy and then your life becomes about making them happy. It stops becoming about you and it becomes about them.
I’m lucky, I have the greatest girlfriend in the whole world. I have screwed up so many times and for some strange reason she still finds it worthwhile to be with me. With her I learned what true love is and we will continue to learn what it means as time passes and our love grows.