On Love, Lust, and Infatuation

I am not going to pretend to be an expert on love, though I do have a lot of experience with the other two subjects in the title. Most people think of me (prior to CJ) as being single... VERY single. I mean the you-look-up-"single"-in-the-dictionary-and-my-picture-is-there kind of single. While I was never in a real relationship until CJ, the truth is, I had my fair share of relationship drama. It was just not the kind my friends had.
My first childhood crush was my swimming coach - pretty normal - totally innocent. I never told him, and he saw me as the little kid I was. My first real crush was as 16. He was 19. I was naive, and he... well, I think he knew that. Thankfully that ended almost before it started. I thought I was heartbroken. The next crush... well, he was gay. He was my best friend and treated me better than any guy I had ever known. Then came the college fling - just kidding - there was no fling. There wasn't even a toss. He was hot-and-cold (hard to read) and I was not about to put myself out there - not with all the studying, working, etc., that I had to do, so college came to a close and we went our seperate ways. By that point I had decided I would stay single forever. I obviously could only like guys I couldn't have and it seemed like a huge waste of emotional energy.
Fast-forward almost three years. I deployed to Iraq and suddenly it seemed I could have any guy I wanted. It didn't take long before one caught my eye. We dated on and off for several years until it came to its inevitable end. I was sure I could never trust anyone ever again... and love? Hahaha... that was out of the question.
My second deployment brought me to GTMO. Once again, guys were falling all over themselves, vying for my attention. The attention was great, but that was all they were good for as far as I was concerned (I am not including the close friendships I developed there - some of the guys did become really good friends). I was well on my way to old-maid-hood. I celebrated New Years in GTMO, rang in 2011 with my fellow island-dwellers, and bid them all adieu, as I prepared to head back to the States.
Enter CJ. It was a Tuesday morning... Januray 4th (I believe), 2011. He was not the suave, smooth-talking kind of guy I normally fell for. Truth be told, our first meeting would have been completely unmemorable if it weren't for the message he gave me: my boss was running late because one of his chickens died and he had to clean the hen-house. I am a city girl at heart, so this was totally outside the realm of reality for me... chickens?! "Hen-houses?! REALLY?!?!?! Is that, like, code for something?!" I wasn't sure whether or not to even take him seriously. Turns out he was telling the truth. And although he may not have stood out during our first meeting, we quickly became friends. He was easy to talk to, and we filled the long hours in the office covering every topic imaginable. Having both grown up in Christian homes and Christian schools, we had a lot of common ground from which to build a solid friendship.
It took a few weeks for me to realize he was interested in me as more than just a friend. Since he met most the criteria I had for any would-be suitors, I encouraged his advances. I was not emotionally invested, but I figured why not see where this leads. I was not in that head-over-heels frame of mind, so it seemed safe. I was determined not to get hurt this time.
As time passed, we spent every waking moment together - literally. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, all day in the office, and all evening till bedtime. All this time together gave me no time to miss him or even to evaluate what I really felt for him. I knew what I thought about him. He was easy-going, fun-loving, and as sweet as could be. He didn't have a mean bone in his body and could diffuse any argument I tried to start.
But I began to think about all those early crushes... the excitement, the rush, that queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Where was all that? The more I thought about, the more I felt like something was missing. Then one day it hit me. I was speeding to work (yes, I love to speed even when I am not running late) when I caught sight of a cop. My heart skipped a beat and the hair on my arms stood on end as I quickly hit the break pedal harder than I needed to. Surprisingly enough, he did not follow me. I continued my drive into work, thinking about how seeing that cop made me feel... it was a lot like that feeling of being "in love." Suddenly, it all made sense. Whatever is forbidden is the thing I need. The person I can't have is the one I want. The thing I can't do is what I want to do. Hmmm... so the adrenaline rush that goes along with the whole thing is not love at all. I suppose some of it is an infatuation (usually more with the idea of the person than the actual person), but most of it is more akin to lust - desire for what can or should never be.  
I was worried that the relationship I had with CJ was too easy. I had bought into the idea that relationships are supposed to be filled with drama and angst - that love stories were made of epic conflicts that come to a grand resolution just in the nick of time, as the happy couple ride away into the sunset. Listen to the love songs of today... "love is a battlefield..." "I'm only gonna break-break, your, break-break your heart..."  "can't we stop hurting each other..." But I realized two things: 1. Those kinds of songs began with my parents' generation. 2. True love - the kind that puts the other person first - ought never to look like those "love" songs. Then I thought about how the Bible describes love:
Love is patient; love is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. ~ I Corinthians 13:4-8
And, at last, I was at peace with my drama-free love story.

Light and Other Mysteries

As a wannabe photographer, I find light intriguing, and by extension, shadows. Like most people who live in this region, I do a lot of driving. Commuting to work, to church, schlepping to the store, visiting my fiance, friends, and family... Nothing is close. I find myself driving at all times of day and night. One of the things I often take note of is how the daylight (or lack thereof) influences what I see. In my opinion, there is a particular beauty in the glint of the early morning sunlight as it kisses each blade of grass and drenches the leaves in its golden warmth. It makes me want to pull over every two seconds and pull out the camera to capture it - to be able to revisit it at some future time, or share it with others.
All of this contemplation on light and shadows got me thinking on a whole other set of philosophical topics - predominantly, the creator of both the earth and sun, Whose character can be seen to some extent in His creation.
One particularly beautiful morning, as I was driving to my beloved's, I had a sudden revelation. If God were the sun, we would be those blades of grass. We reflect His love and His light, but only to the extent that we are in that light. And just as the earth moves around a fixed sun, so God is unmoveable, unchangable... we move. In those darkest of life's moments, when we feel neither light nor love, it is not God, who left us, but we, who left Him.