• Drinking: Cafe au lait.

• Listening to: Andrew Bird

• Wearing: Comfort sweater. Hello, angora.

I started this post a long while ago, in the cold throes of January. I haven’t been able to finish it or to begin another since — I’ve moved out of my house, spent a day in the lovely city of Birmingham, and settled back into Tennessee. I’ve started a fresh semester, gone to all my classes, done all of my homework. But I haven’t been able to push myself into resolving this. So here’s part I, I’m still figuring out the rest.

Love. That’s what it’s all about, right?

But how often is real love given in the same degree to which it is received?

As I think of all my past and present loves, I wonder, are those which weren’t shared the ones that have shaped me most – more, even, than the great loves of which I have been recipient?

Whether the relationship is parental, platonic, or, quite definitely, sexual, the got-and-gave of love is never absolutely equal. The child loves the mother, but the mother’s love for the child is much greater. One love is always sacrificial, the other, owing to the sacrifices. The same is true for friends, though perhaps to a much lesser degree. More than these, with the perfect example of selfless love, there is God, and little old us. And then there’s romantic love, which would never be cause for broken hearts and tears shed, which would go on without end, without slews of boyfriends past, if it weren’t for some disproportion in selflessness along the way.

But these are the everyday inconveniences we find ourselves subject to as human beings who care. It’s when the gulf of loves is great, when it’s Grand Canyon sized, that we find ourselves being moved like never before.