feel my heart beating

you know what i don't like about "grey's anatomy"? there is rarely a resolution. like when izzie wholeheartedly apologized to callie and callie said the most horrible things to her (me = aware that the previous combination of words is a fragment). cheating is wrong, and callie has every reason to be hurt and angry as hell, but it's not just about that. every time someone pours their heart out on that show, it's met with total bitchery and coldness. i know they try to be realistic and to not tie everything up with a perfect little ribbon, but it's not like there's much realistic about that show otherwise anyway. and the way they talk to each other is starting to make me hate every single character. alright, that's my rant about that. moving on.

i want to talk about love. it means something different to everyone. it really does. personally i don't think the word should be just thrown around constantly, because love does mean something and shouldn't be taken lightly. but more than that, i believe that people should be more open to it - feeling it and accepting it - and that you should love as deeply and as often as life and your heart allow.

so. scenario: caroline has rarely or never been in love, and is hesitant and uncomfortable saying "i love you" to other people - significant others, friends; even family. ralph is dating caroline. ralph knows that caroline has difficulty expressing love, so when she one day declares her love for ralph, he is ecstatic. his heart melts; he cries happy tears. maybe he feels that caroline's expression of love was especially meaningful since she doesn't normally share that so easily.

here's another scenario. ginger is a very open, warm-hearted, affectionate person who not only feels love often but she says it, too. to her family, her friends, and her significant others. she is dating johnny. johnny notices this about ginger. he either especially likes it or he's neutral but thinks she's awesome either way; whatever. but they date for a while and one day ginger looks into johnny's eyes and tells him that she loves him. he's happy but not surprised, necessarily.

okay here's my point. here's my question. does caroline's love mean more than ginger's? should it be more appreciated? i'm willing to bet that "love" means something different to each of these four fictional characters. should people be encouraged/forced to come up with what exactly their idea of love is and choose carefully when deciding to whom they should share/declare it before saying the words? there is no right or wrong answer, obviously. it's just something that i think about sometimes. and if you were once with someone and you felt love, whatever it means to you or meant to you at the time, and you said "i love you," and now you question whether or not it was REALLY love, does that mean...that it wasn't? SHOULD you question that? caroline would. i was once a caroline in that sense. i feel i've evolved into a ginger. i'm not saying that caroline is bad; everyone is different. everyone's had different experiences and everyone feels things differently. but what's the point in questioning your past feelings? and what's the point in holding in the way that you feel? don't get me wrong: i don't think you should tell someone that you love them if you don't mean it, especially in a romantic relationship. but if you feel it, i think you should say it. and i think you should say it a lot. that's my own personal preference there, that last thing. but i guess what i'm trying to say is, don't analyze it. don't take it back. ultimately love is all we have. it's all we need, if you will. to quote the oh so wise dr. bailey from grey's anatomy, when questioned as to why someone would do something so extreme as starving themselves to keep a boyfriend: "because people are stupid, and they just want to be loved." or something like that.

all of that said, i've had two people tell me they were in love with me, and they both eventually took it back. i don't know if either of them meant it in the first place or not. when someone takes back their love (how do you even DO that?), it hurts. it fucking hurts. falling out of love is one thing, but telling someone that you never felt it to begin with is quite another. so i guess if you need to do that analysis, i mean if it's going to save the other person, or you, that much pain if you don't, then do it. but don't be afraid to say what you mean, when you mean it. and now all that i can think about is the scene in "knocked up" when paul rudd and seth rogen go to vegas and get high on mushrooms and go back to the hotel room and have that ridiculous conversation about their girls, specifically the part when paul has his revelation that the biggest problem in his marriage is that his wife loves him so much, she wants to be with him all the time. he starts crying, and then goes on to say that he can't accept her love. and then seth is all, "you can't accept LOVE??" and proceeds to berate him, since that is all he wants from his girlfriend and she won't give it to him and it makes him sad every day. it's the funniest fucking scene ever, but it really strikes a chord with me. i know people who have trouble accepting love. that hurts me to see. as mario once said, "you should let me love you." but why isn't it that easy?

your thoughts on the matter are desired and cherished.