The post last week by shadowseeker, about stumbling and finally deciding to let go of all her crutches, to find what she needs in herself, is a theme that has revisited me through many conversations this week. Please enjoy the romantic meanderings of my mind, as I explore this idea further… even a call to action to change the very face of Earth, by changing the very face of Love.

One of my best friends is struggling with the fact that she has found routine- a career, a home, a life that she has created for herself- in which her boyfriend is not really a necessity. She is struggling with the notion that she is in a relationship with someone she doesn’t NEED. She told me about her understanding that the point of a relationship is codependency- adding value to each other’s life. She told me about a saying she heard “Marry someone you can’t live without.”

“But I don’t need him- not financially, not emotionally, not intellectually,” she said.

But that is the beauty of our lives now; we can choose to be with someone, without being obliged to do so. This is what sets us apart from previous generations. The Generation Y that I see is the most independent, self-fulfilling generation. Men are no longer “expected” to be the breadwinners, gender roles are being broken down (a little at a time on a world scale no doubt, but definitely faster in my immediate circles and society.)

Not NEEDING someone has raised our ability to LOVE to existential, intellectual levels. Imagine love removed from the murky atmosphere of jealousy, resentment, dependence, need, and possession and raised above biology to spiritual togetherness!

We are a generation capable of an Elevated Love.

I find myself in the same place. Not NEEDING a man. Enjoying the company of one, falling in love with one, giving your time to one, sacrificing and compromising for one, all those things that make a relationship; done out of choice.

Every day you wake up you have the choice to walk out or stay. Making the decision to stay is making the decision to love. It’s putting the power firmly in our hands, and raises the accountability of our decisions when it comes to our significant other. The choice to be honest to them and to yourself, the choice to maintain your integrity, the choice to be true or faithful. It is a powerful thing this power of choice, and not many will be brave enough to take it- many will fall back to the stone age principles of relationships, and be happy in that dark place.

But I choose this Elevated Love. Let us be the generation that changes the face of love and relationships. Let Love be the thing we are known for.

I can’t take all the credit for this idea; many have said it before no doubt. Khalil Gibran wrote the following.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

Mind you he wrote it about marriage, but in our generation the seriousness of marriage is depleted.

We grew up in an age when people made the choice to end their marriage, and it ended loud, and ugly in a great public forum. We lost faith in marriage, because it no longer means forever. A piece of paper, a legally binding document cannot keep two people together. They have to choose, we always have to choose. The power was ALWAYS in our hands.

That is another thing that sets us apart from previous generations. Love was a means to an end; the end was marriage. Marriage used to be an eventuality, a milestone, a marker in a person’s life. It was the natural progression. But it’s not natural at all. Marriage is an institution created to bind two people together. It’s because we don’t trust each other to stay together without marriage.

Well in this day and age, marriage does not mean forever. People can still walk away.

So let’s change love. Let it not be a means to an end. Let it be the end. Why don’t we accept the other person, exactly as they are, their faults their baggage, and love for the sake of loving?

Marriage is now only a legal step, and not one that means forever. In this world with a cynical, ugly view of “togetherness” it is wonderful to see the opportunity for this Elevated Love.

Love isn’t being two branches on the same tree; it’s not one soul in two bodies. It is two independent, completely different trees, growing side by side. Marriage isn’t two lives being bound together; it is two souls, finding compatibility and CHOOSING to stay together.

Choose an ELEVATED LOVE.