Love at Christmas

    Love is a subject that has been driving me absolutely mental for the past few days, weeks, months as I try to understand the motions I've been going through. Wikipedia says 'Love is an emotion of a strong affection and personal attachment.' This makes a lot of sense because it explains why we have friendships, courtships, bonds between parent and child. Although, from what I've learnt of evolution, this sensation existed as a defence mechanism to nurture the young and encourage teamwork against a common enemy, i.e. lion.

   However, Wikipedia also says that 'Love is also said to be a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection —"the unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another".Love may describe compassionate and affectionate actions towards other humans, one's self or animals.' It is this that I'm having trouble coming to terms with - I would argue that any and all 'selfless' are in themselves 'selfish' because regardless of point of view, it'll benefit you in some way; be it physically, emotionally or morally. I feel bad talking of such a sacred emotion in such a clinical way but it makes me feel better as to why people are so consistently inconsiderate and thoughtless.

   When I was a little girl, I looked to my parents as what love meant, and I liked what I saw. They spoke warmly of each other, made each other laugh, they went out of their way for each other regularly and, well, they just had each other's back. Now, I'm not saying their relationship is perfect because I feel there have been a lot of compromises made and refined over the years to make it function, but it works, and they make each other happy. I want that so badly, to not feel constantly let down and hurt, for a person to show me how they feel in their actions, and not just in their words, maybe I'm just being impatient. The whole topic has got me confused - in my relationship, I've got Wiki's first definition down, but not the latter. There could potentially be hundreds of reasons for this; gender differences, social backgrounds, political standing, interests, that kind of thing. On the other hand, I've always been under the impression that this latter definition of what love was, was universal. It's not enough to say I love you, you have to mean it, and more than that, show it.

   I'm spending the majority of the Christmas holidays alone as a result of how love can go wrong within the family. The problem with this time of year is that everyone is doing the same thing, in returning to their resident tribes and indulging in practices known collectively to them. I've had several warm invitations from friends to spend Christmas with theirs but I know that this would serve no great purpose, except maybe make the family feel awkward, and me feel worse for not having what they do. I guess you could say that this blog post is a rant about how much I feel ripped of by the institution of love in all senses of the word, and how much this is emphasised at Christmas. It's an awful thing to say, but I'm truly losing faith in people's faith in me - I have lost countless friends simply due to them feeling uncomfortable with my complicated circumstances, and I really don't feel that this is my fault. Just truly abysmally bad luck.

   There's a voice in my head, and I'm sure many reading will be thinking the same kind of thing, 'get your head out your arse', 'get over yourself', 'get on with it', 'think of something other than yourself'. I know, I hear you and you'll have to bear with me. I've been doing this whole 'let's get optimistic and do stuff for people' thing since I was 16, and I have to say, even though i'm only 19, it's exhausting. Little rewards are being reaped for my efforts, largely due to circumstances out of my control i.e. moving home. I need shelter, I need family, I need friendship, but more than anything, I need love.