Falling

What is love?
Can you tell me in one sentence?
Earlier I wrote “love is a decision, not just a feeling.”
While I still think this is true, (I’ve read enough marriage books to be adequately brain-trained) I think I had it backwards.
Love is first feeling, which later, in healthy relationships, grows into commitment.
Those lovely feelings are natural and good and should come before the monotonous, every day “I am choosing to love you” decisions.

And when you truly love someone, you can’t help those feelings from creeping out, well, more like busting out.

“Love is what happens. It is not something you conjure or create. You cannot manufacture it. You cannot make it happen. It is like falling; it is out of your control. You do not climb into love or fly into love or even walk into it. You fall into love; love bruises and bumps…but it also holds.” –Ned Erickson, Falling Into Love (Relevant Books)

Regina Spektor’s song, “Fidelity” http://www.myspace.com/reginaspektor is a new favorite, in which I can relate:

I’ve never loved nobody fully / Always one foot on the ground / And by protecting my heart truly, I got lost / In the sounds / I hear in my mind / All of these voices. …all of these words…all this music…and it breaks my heart / Suppose I kept on singing on singing love songs…just to break my fall…

I have never let myself fall. But you know what? I am going to fall.
If not in love, then at least out of a plane (but preferably both).
Anyone wanna go skydiving?