Lessons of Love

I recently read a Blogpost on lifeinapile.com titled "Ain't Sh*t Guys Make Great Boyfriends" where the writer Candice McCoy stated that men don't know how to love until they've hurt someone. At first I disputed this notion then after really analyzing certain situations I realized this was true. From this I also started thinking, well what was it that made me learn how to love.  Life is funny sometimes and things truly can come around full circle. Despite in a several relationships and situationships I never stopped to think if I ever truly loved any of them. I'll be the first to admit whether it was my high school relationship, my first relationship as an adult at 22, or the situationships I had that last 8-9 years I was clueless about love for the most part. I really learned about love through losing someone and also looking at things from the eyes of someone else. I learned how to love in the weirdest way possible. Now i've written about her before in a previous post (fantastic four) but this young lady let's just call her K was probably one of the only women to actually understand me. For reasons that are unknown K and I could never get it together and date exclusively. Now we had moved on to other relationships, but it wasn't until I ran into her two weeks before your wedding it hit me "this is the woman I truly loved." I was sickkkkk did I show, it no but when she said "yeah i'm getting married in 2 weeks" my heart sank into my stomach. I would flash back and think of all the things I should have done or ways she could have known how much I actually loved her. This was the first time it really hit me that I was in love with her despite not seeing her for a while before that day. Looking back, I realized she taught me how to feel comfortable expressing myself, how to really listen instead of having a rebuttal ready and tuning the person out, how to deal with emotion head on. At the time I didn't see it, but all of these things were important factors in me realizing that she indirectly was teaching me how to love. I will always thank her for that lesson and should she read this she'll know I'll always be grateful for her. The other way I learned how to love was watching how someone loved me. Let's call her T. T and I were also never in a relationship, but rather an off and on situationship for 7-8 years. Now T would literally do everything for me whether it was cooking, help me out of a jam, and basically had no limits when it came to anything. She taught me that when you love someone there is truly nothing you wouldn't do for them. Looking back on it the love she had for me was stronger than any other person. Both of these women taught me how to love and it probably wasn't until a few yrs ago I put the pieces together and realized this. I was glad to reach this pt because I know this is something that would help me in the long run.