Inspired by Toya Qualls-Barnette post, 11 things I know about love
Accident or design
Did you choose love or did love choose you?
I think that love chooses us.
We meet many people in the course of a day and over a lifetime.
All of it by design.
Sometimes there is a temporary exchange and then we each go our merry way and in an instant that meeting is forgotten.
But that meeting serves one or both of you in some way.
Then there are those people we meet that make a temporary impact on us. A deeper imprint on the fabric of our lives.
And as the meeting concludes it crosses your mind that in different circumstances, you could see a friendship develop.
But the purpose of your meeting is served and the relationship is severed. Each one leaves satisfied.
Yet there are those we meet intermittently throughout the course of a life.
We may not maintain constant contact but there is a depth of “mutual need” that remains on a temporary or a permanent basis.
Once this relationship ends, we can move on with transient regret/sadness to be quickly forgotten.
We may think of them from time to time with fondness, though we do not grieve their loss with any real depth.
Then there are those we meet that make a forever imprint that is impossible to erase.
Sometimes the meeting is fleeting, sometimes it lasts a while.
But we touch each other on a soul level, we instantly feel comfortable in their company and love found a home there.
We can let our hair down and be our authentic selves.
Even at the inception of the meeting, there is a feeling that we “know” that person.
Why does this occur?
The birth of love
It does not take much to love others.
We did not consciously choose to love who we love, yet somehow it seems love was always present. Love just needed to meet and be birthed.
Some days ago, as my co-worker and I drove away from work in separate directions, I felt that ping of regret. It crossed my mind that someday, the separation will be permanent.
She is older than I and plans to retire in about 2 years,
But I have such fun working with her. We have such great conversations throughout the day.
And I have grown to love her.
We don’t have a relationship outside of work really and I will walk away a little sad.
Did I choose that love or did the love choose me?
Do we choose who we love?
I believe love chooses us.
We cannot/do not make a conscious choice to love.
Love simply happens.
Oftentimes against our better judgment, we find ourselves drawn to people and falling hopelessly in love.
I believe we have no control over the process and cannot influence it one way or another.
If we could choose love, we would be able to stop ourselves from falling in love and if we no longer wanted to be with a person, we would simply command ourselves to stop.
We have no more influence on how it develops to how it ends if it ever really ends (another post).
I posit that we are simply pawns in a heated game of chess being played by universal champions.
The queen or the king gets taken each time against their will.
The takeaway
I have met many people during the course of this life.
In healthcare, setting faces can become lost in the crowd. Yet there are patients who have made an impact on me. I remember them and their stories.
We formed a bond and made an imprint that is impossible to erase.
I loved them on some level. I wanted the best outcome for them and I did all that I could for the times our paths intersected.
Along the way, some have loved me, some I have loved.
I refer to all love, with no distinction of any specific type of love.
I speak of the people we have felt deep affection for, those that have changed our lives in some way as we have changed theirs.
The loves that we never want to lose, and if we lose them, we ache forever, in places and ways we cannot really define.
Each time they are called into remembrance it brings a wailing of the soul.
The ones we try always to replace though it remains a vain hope.
Why did we meet?
Why did we gravitate toward each other?
The meeting was not purposeful on our part, yet neither of us could walk away without wanting a way to reconnect.
What are your thoughts, do we choose love or does love choose us?
Love has everything to do with anything
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Originally published on another blog.
JustPene 
Pene, all of this seems so true to me. Meeting Robert was much like the moment you described. We had met online. The first time I met him in person, I felt I had known him for a very long time. That was 8 years ago.
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