Love is Not a Choice

God should have known better.

Am I going to hell for saying that? Does God care or even exist? I don’t know. Such questions are far above my pay grade.

What is love? From where does it come, simple biology wired into our DNA or is it more of a spotlight coming down through the clouds from heaven? Is it ever really a choice to love, or not to love? I know people who say they are happy on their own, who don’t need or want a companion, but I’m not certain I believe them, or at least not all of them.

My podcast relationship coach Jillian Tureki had pointed out in her most recent book that, if I may paraphrase, you must reconcile your relationship with your parents or you may relive that relationship with your life partner. Now, my parents were wonderful: loving, patient, and supportive. Yet I have come to realize that it we did not have a perfect family (as likely no one does). The issue in my family was that we were not particularly good at expressing our feelings. It wasn’t that no one ever said, “I love you,” because I’m certain that was said, but it did not happen with regularity.

When I was around 18 years old, I lived in Nashville with my older sister while attending Vanderbilt. My mother came to Nashville to visit, or perhaps it was when we were moving into the apartment. I think it was just a visit, because I had been obsessing about a particular girl I liked from home, and listening to a lot of Cat Stevens, where the lyrics told me to just let go and express love. And so, I decided that I would tell my mother that I loved her.

The fact that making such a statement was such a big deal to me says a lot, perhaps mostly about me. I was a self-centered, entitled child at age 18, fairly responsible under normal circumstances, yet taking most of the world for granted and failing to connect to those I loved. There, in Nashville, I wanted to change that. I wanted to tell the girl I loved her. And I wanted to tell my mother I loved her.

I wish I could remember more. My own past is sometimes hidden by clouds.

Of course, I put my declaration, as simple and normal as it seems to me now, off until the very end. My mother was actually getting into her car to begin the long drive south to Mississippi.

“I love you, Mom!” I blurted out. She got into the car, no doubt waved, and drove away.

I knew she had not heard me.