Before you can accept somebody "as they are", you have to accept love for what it really is.

This is a little long. But sit still for a minute. Don't be an impatient buggar, and I promise to try and say something useful.

"The powerful and intangible beauty and pain of love." I said that to Lovebabz as I responded to her comment at this blog. Those words set off a series of thoughts on the truth about love. While many of us are addicted to the idea that love is like a field of daisies, too many forgot (or suffer denial about) an important reality: The beauty of love comes with all kinds of pain. And just like love means accepting a person for who they are, you need to first accept love for what it is.

What the hell do I mean? Pay attention, dammit.

I once heard Jimmy Evans say that finances, sex, and other common issues aren't the real cause for divorce. Divorce happens when somebody says "when I married you, I hoped for this, and in the end, all I got was THIS." Jimmy made the point that "disappointment" triggers divorce, when the "A" of your hopes doesn't meet the "Z" of what you actually got. Fantasy versus reality. Folks had a fantasy of what a mate should be and burned fucking rubber when the mate turned out to be an actual human - flaws and all.

From where I sit, we don't just experience this disappointment with other people. We experience it with love itself. Every day, I see people "giving up on love" because the truth of love doesn't look anything like the fantasy.

Stick with me. I'm going somewhere.

"I like you for your qualities... I love you for your flaws." You don't need the power of true love to be with a "perfect" person. Love is what happens when you connect and commit to somebody in spite of their shortcomings (because we all have them). And because of the flawed nature of human beings, love becomes a tool to overcome. To beat the odds. To feel the warmth of caring for an imperfect person while enduring the cool of their imperfections. And what a feeling when they love you back in spite of your bullshit.

I can only conclude that love is a powerful intangible force full of beauty and pain. Digging to the deepest levels of the beauty requires some trips through deeper trials. To get to any semblance of the fantasy of love, you're gonna have to get vulnerable. You're gonna have to sacrifice. You have to navigate the obstacle course of self discovery even when you don't like something that flies out of your emotional closet. Yes. It's hard work.

Superficial love doesn't require such pain. It only brushes the surface, like the difference in a scratch and a puncture wound. You may not need to put much into a superficial relationship, but you sure as hell aren't gonna get anything meaningful out of it either. For those who don't want to rub two brain cells together, accept these Cliff's Notes: No pain, no gain.

Despising the truth of love's dual-edged sword will lead you to search for "perfect" people and superficial connections. The wisest of us know where that road always leads. So before you call yourself trying to find somebody to love in truth, school yourself just a bit on the truth about love so your emotionally unstable ass will be ready.