Creating Creative and Critical Thinking, a Struggle for All

Greensboro Batting Center facilities

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to share in something positive in my future stepson's life.  My fiance and I took him to the batting cages near my parents' house.  He had a blast!  For being in coach-pitch/T-ball, he did really well being in the slow-pitch baseball cage (balls traveling an average of 40-45 mph).  My fiance and I got to share something he loved with him and try and use it as a learning opportunity to better his ability.

When we got back to my parents' house, we continued to play with him, my sisters and parents participating as well.  The most beautiful thing is that the majority of the play occurred outside, without distraction from a television set or electronic materials.  But as with everyone, there are always hiccups in perhaps behavior during so much stimulation.  This did occur but I must say that the positive moments far outshone the negative.

It is a shame to think that some children in the world may not have the benefit of parents who want or are able to give them this kind of positive and creative interaction.  As in previous posts, some parents work multiple jobs to try and support their family.  When you are constantly working, you come home to find little time to spend with your family.  Maybe those parents come home only to creep into their children's rooms and kiss them goodnight, hoping that they can have more time to foster the mind tomorrow.  Tomorrow comes and goes and they find themselves with less time than before.

The saddest out of all these possibilities is a parent who does not even want to give a child any attention or positive interaction.  These are sometimes the parents who maybe had a child young or maybe their relationship didn't work out.  Perhaps the bills have piled up and the parent or parents do not see the time as important to spend with their child/children.  This is an unfortunate reality in society.  There are many children who go without that guidance that is so desperately needed in their life.  This guidance creates the differentiation between what is positive and good in life in comparison to what is negative and bad.  Without this guidance, children are left to their own devices to work this out and may decide the opposite of reality.

More often than not (and I have touched on this before), when we don't teach our children, we leave media to teach them for us.  When we leave media on too long, the lessons only get distorted and misleading.  Take for example video games.  Instead of children go outside and running from each other and imagining something to run from, they are content to run on a computer screen.  From this, the imagination is being starved and the body is being ignored.  While watching television with my future stepson, it is disturbing to think how much television has changed.  While there are some educational shows, a lot of the cartoons do not teach anything of value.  For example, I have seen shows that seem to teach that finding an easy way out is a good way out.

We want to teach our children, critical and creative thinking, problem solving and to use their imagination.  If we do not help our children develop these skills, they can experience difficulty in their future.  This is way both playing with others and learning to play by themselves is so important and vital.  I am grateful that I have two sisters that I could play with growing up and develop games with.  So do yourself a favor.  If you have children, play with them or help them learn to play.  Buy them items to craft with, develop dress up boxes (for boys too!), and play with your children, never forgetting to challenge them and yourself as well.  Teach them to enjoy life as you have come to enjoy it!

To Walk a Mile in Someone's Shoes...

As a child, I was always taught that before you judge someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes.  As a child, the concept of walking such a distance was enlarged by my stature (or, rather, lack thereof).  A mile! I would think.  How far is a mile?  Of course, as I got older, I discovered how far a mile is and is not.  I had to complete a mile to pass Gym class one year.  Another year, I would walk miles in marching band without a second thought.  But one thing that never crosses our mind while we are walking that mile, be it by reflection, choice or required, is the gait we take as well.

Gait, as a noun, is defined by Merriam-Webster.com as "a manner of walking or moving on foot," or "a manner or rate of movement or progress."  Each individual person has a different gait or manner of walking.  Think about it.  Have you ever walked beside someone and had to change your manner of walking in order to keep up with them?  Perhaps they took longer or shorter strides.  Perhaps you had to move over because they walked more with their hips than you.  The best example of this is when we walk beside our parents.  I always wanted to meet my Mom or Dad stride-for-stride, but always struggled to do so.

Growing up, there was a remarkable place my family use to go called Imagination Station Science Museum, of Wilson, North Carolina.  This was a museum of play, where kids could run and play, explore and experience.  My sisters and I loved it!  I remember asking if we could visit monthly.  There was one area I remember the most.  It was a race you could participate in.  More specifically, it was a race against other animals, such as a bear, a cheetah or turtle.  Anyone familiar with these animals can guess which one a child could win against (Air Jordans or not!).  But a contributing factor to this is the gait and stride of the animal you would be racing.

How can we really understand someone if we only put on their shoes?  How can we claim to understand someone if we put on their shoes yet maintain our own gait?  We each perceive and experience the world at a different pace, seeing things at a different point in time, at own own gait both physically and mentally.

Imagine trying to understand someone missing a limb is going through if you don't try to travel through life as they do.  You can climb into a wheelchair and wheel yourself around.  I know, I did it with my grandmother's wheelchair.  But I couldn't begin to understand how it felt to be in that wheelchair for extended periods of time.  For life to have to slow down for you to get there in time.  Can you truly understand or pass judgement without first understanding how someone walks?  What speed, what size stride?  We can try shoes on shoes all day and walk in our walk.  But no one can tell a story like the other person's shoes, walk or stride.

This applies in all aspects of life.  You cannot begin to understand someone's plight, someone's loss or whatever someone is experiencing without understand first how they got there, how they are moving and where they want to go.  We can't begin to help until we know where it hurts.  And we can begin to pick someone up until we know how they have fallen.  If we keep all this in mind, we can all walk side-by-side, stride-for-stride, never missing a beat.  With that, unity can occur.  And every mile would be walked together.

If they say it on the Internet/Radio/Television...

Modern TV family

...it must be true!

Are you familiar with that ad?  I believe it is for State Farm insurance.  The gentleman is mapping his accident on his cell phone when a women walks up.  She is all about how they can't post any lies on the Internet.  Then she says her date, who is a French model, is coming who she met on the Internet.  He is far from a model and, from the look on his face, you can tell he lied to her.

Why am I bringing this up?  These media sources (radio, Internet, television) are ways we learn about how to deal with things and how products come into our homes.  Last night, on the way home from work, I heard a radio ad aimed at parents of unfocused children.  The advertised product was a game, a video game, that your child was able to play and learn to focus and learn overall.  They were giving away demos.  Not only did just this idea make me sad but at the very end of the ad was a startling statement.  It was not in the wording of a typical disclaimer.  Instead of "May not be effective for all children," it said, "Your child may not be successful."

How powerful.  Parents only want the best for their children, only want their children to succeed.  Otherwise, why would they buy such a product.  But the power in the statement that takes the blame of effectiveness off the product and places it on the child.  Therefore, if your child does not improve or succeed, it is the fault of the child, not the product.

The other component that blows my mind in this advertisement is the idea that a child can gain these skills all through a video game.  But then again, we are a generation that let's our televisions babysit for us.  Whenever we have my fiance's son over, I am amazed at how much his life revolves around the TV.  We try to turn it off for him to settle down for the night, only to be met with cries that a certain show was about to come on or should be coming on.  He has asked us if he can fall asleep on the sofa, watching TV.  When he is watching it, he is in a trance.

I will admit that when I watch TV, I sometimes tune the rest of the world out.  My escape.  It shouldn't be.  My art should be my escape, my music should be my escape, as should my relationship and my family and friends.  Unfortunately, by the time I get home some nights, there isn't time.  For example, all this week, I do not get home until after 9:30 every night.  Once home, it's time for me to finish everything else that needs to be done around the house, for myself and the meal.

Life gets crazy and hectic.  But that is never reason enough to set aside the relationships between people in order to hush a room with a movie or TV.  And these things will not help our children, our youth get better in school.  When I heard the radio commercial, I immediately tried to reflect back on how I was taught to focus.  I wasn't taught with TV, video games or Internet.  Those were things I was privileged to if I earned them.  Otherwise, I knew to pay attention, to listen, to do well in school.  I knew how to play by myself and with my sisters.

Perhaps with having television babysitting our children, it causes inattentiveness.  We try to talk to the youth while they are lost in another world.  It could be teaching them that it is OK to ignore an adult.  If we don't like something on TV or on the radio, we just change the channel.  At school, there is no channel to change.  If a student gets "bored," they will lose focus and have difficulty refocusing.  When children play by themselves or with other children, they learn important social skills, creative thinking and problem solving.  When they watch TV, they learn a completely different set of values and not actively either.  There is both active and passive learning.  Active learning is when the child is participating in an activity that helps them retain this information.  It could be singing a song, writing something down.  An example of this is when I wrote the alphabet and challenged my fiance's son to write each letter.  Passive learning is when you watch something and absorb the information.  At a young age, however, not all the information may be absorbed in this manner.  Maybe some facts will and others will not.

Maybe no more than a year ago, my mom handed me an article about games.  It was teaching parents ideas of games to play with their children outside.  They were games I played when I was a child.  Seeing something like this makes me very sad.  I know we are a world that is constantly rushing around until we are exhausted, not leaving time enough to enjoy with our families.  But is the extra three dollars worth losing your family, losing your relationships with your family, your children?

"Hoppy" Easter

Christ is Risen!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

A very Happy Easter to those of my readers who celebrate the conquest of death by Jesus Christ!  For those of you who may not share in this belief, happy final day of March!  I certainly hope it is filled with candy, love, family, friends and happiness!

I recall the phrase above being shouted at the Easter Vigil right as the lights were to be turned on and the church brought back into Light.  Shouts of "Hosanna" could be heard in celebration of the cementing of eternal life.  To reiterate the meaning of this celebration, Easter is one of the most honored feast days in the Christian religion.  It is celebrated as the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  

Easter is also known as a time for rebirth and renewal.  The world is just starting to bud and burst from beneath a layer of snow or permafrost, the Earth becoming ready to till.  As is the Earth, so our minds must turn and till to prepare for more knowledge and growth in our lives.  How ironic that school was a thing taken up during the time where the harvest was done and the sowing could not yet commence?  However, when the sowing could commence, the learning was thought to stop.  It is as though where one sense of learning ceases, another takes its place.

This is much like the world outside of school.  While attending school, you focus as your source of learning is what you read from books and glean from your teachers.  You hardly notice learning from experience or gain wisdom from life lessons.  When you leave school, you may think initially that learning is completed, only to find out otherwise.  Learning doesn't ever stop or cease its existence.  It only becomes more intuitive and more ingrained in our world.

Just yesterday, I came to to learn another lesson.  You see, I am constantly someone who guards her thoughts, feelings and attitudes for fear of judgement.  I discovered that I still perpetuate this attitude in even writing this piece of literature.  My fiance reminds me well that I am talented in expressing my thoughts and feelings and yet, expressing them is to share a piece of vulnerability that lies within myself.  

As a result, my rebirth for this year occurred yesterday.  I shared with the world my musings, my writings and my vulnerability.  With this, I expose who I am with no holds barred.  I hope you will enjoy what I write and what I think.  Most of all, I hope you respect it.  I cannot promise what I put will be in line with yours thoughts, Reader, but I would be respectful of your thoughts and feelings.

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter and please come back to read more of my writings.  I draw from my experiences, my environment and what I hear around me.  Until then, enjoy a thing called, La Vie."

Brick by Brick

Last night, my fiancé and I had just finished dinner and we were enjoying watching TV.  I told him I had sent him an email about a house I had seen online.  From there, we again commenced our quest to finding our future home.  We shared pictures, descriptions and appearances, concerns and excitement.  It was fun to think about of course, especially being two adults living in a 2 BR/1 BA apartment.

Come the morning following an evening such as this, my mind begins to wonder the various loopholes and traps that might be lying in our path.  We have to consider our finances, I tell him.  What about the down payment, the water, insurance, taxes?

In his cool, calm, collected way, he laughs over the phone and reassures me:

We will be okay.  We just have to pray and things will work out.

 

I drive to work thinking about how we are not even yet married and considering buying a home.  Are we putting the cart before the horse?  Or perhaps, are we building our home too fast?  Whenever you look at a home, do you ever think of how long the construction actually took?  Or do you just see a pretty façade and a few potential problems, a money pit or a dream come true?

 

I realized in a past job of mine how often we over look things.  I worked in the sign industry.  You read it right.  I watched sign being built, repaired, conceived, priced and sold.  I remember thinking that I had never thought about how every sign I saw needed to be made.  And made in a certain way!  Later in my job, I had to work in the vinyl department, cutting and laying vinyl for signs.  I learned quickly that you can do things in a certain order to get everything looking pristine or do them how you want and potentially end up with a less than uniform mess.

 

Considering that, are we building our home, our life too fast?  I suppose if we weren't considering the fundamentals of our life together, we would be.  We would be building a shell without having a firm foundation nor a way to fill the walls.  However, I am lucky that my fiancé and I share a lot of the fundamental morals that come into question during any relationship.  Sure we differ in some areas.  But we are two different people and that happens.  My favorite quote about marriage is:

 

Marriage is a perfect union entered into by two imperfect people.

 

So generally, we are similar.  We can say our foundation is poured.  We even have some of the frame work built.  We are experiencing living together, the division of responsibilities and discussions of the financial sorts.  And we are being cautious.  We discussed this morning about sitting down with all the numbers and complying what we think is possible.  This includes bills, loans, possible things in the future, financing of a home and other various items of our household.  So I think the framework is close to being done.

 

To fill a house, to make it a home, it has to be filled to the rafters, to the brim, with Love.  And that Love can come from a variety of different sources.  It should be Love for yourselves as individuals and as a couple, Love from your families and their support, as well as Love in the divine sense.  Whatever your belief system, I am sure you feel an embrace from the world sometimes.  It is time to embrace back.

 

No relationship is ever completely built.  My fiancé and I will be building our relationship until the end of our days (God willing).  And even then, I am sure, if you could ask us if our relationship was completely, I feel we would still tell you it needs work.  This is due to the fact that relationships are not slapped together and left to stand the test of time.  They are a work of art that constantly needs to be updated, perfected and improved upon.  Perhaps one day, I will need to work less and spend more time at home.  Perhaps one day, we will have to work more to have a home.  But it is those intricacies, the salient motion of relationships that not only make it more difficult to maintain, but more rewarding as well. 

 

So as I take you on the journey of building my relationship brick by brick, I hope you enjoy a thing called, "La Vie."



Narrowly Avoiding Disaster

Every morning, when I drive to work, I pass by some beautiful landscape. There is a huge farm that I can always see to my right, followed by different properties that make anyone ready to settle down. It can also prove to be distracting. Along my route this morning, I spotted a crow in the middle of the road. As we know, most birds fly off as soon as a car comes near. But never a crow. If you watch, they take their time.

My little crow this morning literally took three steps and then two hops...to simply get into the other lane! Although he was safe from me and the vehicle immediately behind me, he was lying in the wake of a vehicle too far for him to notice. Seeing this caused me to think about how much we can be like crows. We do just enough to step out of immediate harm's way, only to not foresee the danger coming up fast behind us.

Are we simply dancing in the road, teasing those potential dangers as a matador would a bull? Why do we do this to ourselves?

I spent the rest of my drive trying to consider what situations I may have narrowly avoided, only to put myself in the wake of something bigger. A good analogy would be scenarios from when I was in school. I commonly could skate through classes with minimal studying required on my part. I would pass each test, but never without sweating it out (not a good test taker, mind you). Needless to say, when the final, comprehensive test came along, I realized I had narrowly avoided immediate danger to only place myself in a more precarious situation. The same can be said for how I often would write papers. My final year in college, I wrote the bulk of my final papers the night before they were due. Sure, I wrote outlines and did my research. I even had thorough notes for each one. But that one night was spent in a flurry of desperate activity, mad I procrastinated.

I had done minimal work for minimal reward in each situation. While the immediate reward was great, it left me with something more monumental to consider later in the year. This does not simply apply to school work, either. There can be circumstances in work, personal life, relationships, even your Faith where this can be demonstrated.

For example, at work, you take each day as it comes, setting up the files and having them on hand. Then, suddenly, your superior wants a full, comprehensive document you created with all the values inputted from the time of conception. If you were only taking it day-by-day, you may not have entered every value necessary.

In relationships, this is commonly known as "too little, too late." Have you ever talked to a friend who tells you they didn't realize it until it was too late that their love was gone? Bruno Mars just had a song come out that capitalizes on this situation:

(Chorus)

Hmmm too young, too dumb to realize
That I should have bought you flowers and held your hand
Should have gave you all my hours when I had the chance
Take you to every party cause all you wanted to do was dance
Now my baby is dancing, but she's dancing with another man.

We get as much as we give. If we do the bare minimum in our lives to get by, can we truly say we are living life to the fullest? Instead of buying that diamond for your significant other when it's too late, why not do little things to reinforce how much you value that person? I know I try to do this with my fiancé. It isn't always perfect and doesn't always work out. But hopefully he knows from my efforts that I love him.

He does the same for me. One night, when it was snowing and I worked late, I came out to my car. It was encased in ice, about a quarter inch thick! I turned the key in my door and pulled hard, almost falling on the ice around my car. And what was inside, but an ice scraper and a note from my fiancé telling me that he can't wait to see me and to be careful driving home. No diamond. No riches. Just his emotions and love written in a note and shown in an ice scraper.

So the next time you are faced with this scenario in any situation in life, why not avoid moving into the next lane like the crow and fly out of the road instead? Take proactive measures to anything. Believe me, I need to take my own advice! Instead of narrowly avoiding disaster, why not take steps to stay out of harm’s way? So please, don't play in the streets and enjoy a thing called, "La Vie."

Discovering Love...Again

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

Love (noun):


1 a (1) : strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties
      (2) : attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers
      (3) : affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests
 
    b : an assurance of affection


4 a : unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another:
   as (1) : the fatherly concern of God for humankind
       (2) : brotherly concern for others

   b : a person's adoration of God

This may be the hardest thing to write.  One of them, at least.  To really explain my outlook on love and Love, I have to explain my experiences from Love.  This gives you, the reader, an opportunity to explore how I came to my viewpoint currently.

Currently, I am in love with an amazing man, engaged to be married and enjoying life each day as it comes.  But if you were to meet me in my freshman year of college, this girl did not exist.  This girl had yet to be discovered.

I had typical experiences in high school.  I had "boyfriends" but didn't kiss anyone until I was 17.  The boy that I kisses (that was outside of preschool, mind you.  I don't count that) was a gentleman.  We had a lot of good times.  Unfortunately, we met 2 weeks before I had to move away with my family.  Before then, love had played cruel games on me.  I was teased, picked on, lead on and told I was only fit to marry, but never date.  After the move, the relationship lasted only to the end of May, perhaps early June.  That was the last good relationship I would know in approximately 2 years.

My grandmother passed away and plunged into a downward spiral.  I was used and tossed aside like a rag doll.  I won't go into detail now, perhaps another time.  One story at a time, like the 40 Arabian Nights.  I had extremely low self-esteem.  I hated the person in the mirror.  I was an object, subjected to the whims and fancy of those around me.  I didn't know what else to do.

December of 2006, I thought things would turn around.  I started talking to a guy on Myspace.  Remember that social media site?  He seemed like a gentleman and we made plans to meet.  I was in college in Hickory, NC and he lived in Gastonia, NC.  I drove to meet him on his turf.  I ignored the red flags.  What could I do?  He wanted me...

The first time I met him, I don't remember much.  The one thing that sticks out in my mind is the fact that he got a letter, addressed to someone else.  He said he couldn't receive mail under his own name.  That should have been the first warning to run as fast as I could.

But I didn't.  Like an idiot, I stayed.  And like I deserved, he began to take my liberties.  He took control of my life.  My clothes, my debit card, my card, my things.  Nothing was mine.  I felt as though I had to do this because he was right in what he said.  No one loves me.  No one cares...except him.

I remember one night, we went to a country bar in Charlotte, NC.  I was so excited to go out.  He had brought a friend with him, another guy.  I had to pay the cover for all of us.  That night, I was dancing and having fun when someone bumped into me.  Being who I am, I hip bumped the guy back, making light of a crowded situation.  I looked over at my boyfriend and saw fire in his eyes.  Terror flooded my mind and my receptors.  He had threatened to leave me on the roadside before.  To take my liberty even further.  I walked over, my head hanging to my chest.  He accused me of cheating with that man, the man I was hip bumping.  No amount of pleading would make him believe me.  I was so scared.

This was probably not the first time terror was brought into my life by this monster.  But it wasn't the last.  I remember I would drive the hour to see him on a school night.  I would try to leave when I thought he was asleep at 11 pm, at which he would wake up and ask me where I was going.  Saying he didn't want me to leave.  And with that, I would stay.  I would drive back to school at 4 or 5 am, nearly falling asleep at the wheel.  Several times, I fell asleep while on the road, waking with a start at the swerving motion the vehicle was being subjected to.  I remember him seeing me in nice clothes and telling me I was clearly cheating on him.  I had a conversation with a classmate and I was sleeping with him.  I was told to wear baggy shirts and ripped jeans.  But this person was the only one person who loved me.  He told me so...

On Valentine's day, my parents gave me a gift card to get myself something as a gift from them.  I handed it to him, the monster, thinking he might get me something, give him a way to buy me a gift without his own money.  He bought me a 99 cent rose.  The card was not returned to me.  There were other gifts in the car.  Mine was an after thought.

I was a part of the school's a Capella choir.  Every spring, they would go on a spring tour, traveling to some place and sing at different churches along the route.  But that's when things got odd.  I called and he said he was in the hospital.  He told me a dorm mate of mine took him there.  Should have been yet another red flag.

During our intimate moments, he would be on the computer, talking to other girls.  I was an after thought.  Yet I thought he held me as the center of his world.  How blind was I!  After coming home from the spring tour, I found a hospital bill in my car with a different name on it.  Not his.  But someones...he couldn't explain how it got there.  I went home for St Patrick's day and celebrated with my family.  My parents, especially my mom, kept asking me if I was OK, that I didn't look well.  My grades were suffering, although I didn't tell anyone.  I didn't have the strength to get out of bed.  I was about to lose my scholarship, although I won't know this until it was too late.  A few weeks after St Patrick's day was Easter.  I told him I was going home for Easter.  He complained but ultimately capitulated.  And that trip and what occurred afterward probably saved my life.

I came back from visiting home and began to clean out my car.  He had left it littered with trash and various sundries of things.  But then, my hand came to rest on an item that shocked me to discover.  A knife.  There was a knife hidden under the driver's seat of my car.  I was shaken to the core.  I broke down and began sobbing again.  I couldn't ever seem to stop crying.  My life became a series of tears and sleep, the only things my body had the energy for.  I knew then that it had to be over.  With that knife, my life could have been over in a fit of rage.  And it was not the knife I had bought him.

The end of that relationship or rather reign of terror came with the help of my parents.  He had confiscated my iPod and other various sundries of my possessions.  I couldn't face him alone.  I asked my dad to go with me.  He obliged me.  When we approached the door, I knew he was inside.  He wouldn't answer.  When we drove off, he text me, telling me to come back without my dad.  My dad told me to drop him off about a block away so he could still see me and then go.  More importantly my dad told me he loved me and would back me, no matter what.  With that, I faced him.  He shoved some of my possessions into my arms and closed the door.  I hadn't been invited to the house in a while.  The last time I was there, visiting with his family, the cat they rescued came to let me pet him.  The monster was amazed as the cat wouldn't come near him.  Small wonder.  Animals know people better than we know ourselves.

He called and begged me not to do this while I was having dinner with my dad.  When I said I couldn't, he flew into a rage.  I have blocked out whatever obscenities he may have hurled in my direction.  And this wasn't the end.

Over the course of the month, the girl who took him to the hospital went with me back to his house to demand the rest of my belongings.  He shoved them into my arms and threatened to come after us.  He began to jump into his mother's vehicle to follow us as we drove off.  At the end of April, he was spotted in that same girl's room.  I came to find out that in the span of a little over 4 months, he had been with 7 different women, not including myself.  My dorm mate and he got engaged ultimately and I had to suffer seeing him on campus for over a year.  He had lied to me about his name and his whole story.  All because he was a registered sex offender who didn't want to report his new location.  And I was completely in the dark about all of this.

The damage was done.  I lost my scholarship for a year.  My life was in shambles.  I thought of dark things daily.  My world was clouded over with despair.  I made more bad choices.  I was caught in the snarls of other men who were terrible to me and for me.  It wasn't until February of the following year that I got back into a better relationship.  Even then, I wasn't whole as I could be.

I am now engaged to a wonderful man who has taught me the true meaning of love.  He fits all the definitions seen above.  And I hope my Faith will help grow my Love too.  Over the last year, I have realized that I have been discovering the meaning of love all along, even with kissing my share of frogs.  I was learning to love my family again, the way I should love them.  I was also learning to love myself, little by little.  I still have a ways to go until I love myself without a second thought.  But love is something that always has to be discovered and rediscovered.  Even in long-standing marriages, those couples would tell you the spark takes effort to be warmed and maintained.  To love is easy.  To be in love takes work, dedication and compassion for the other person.  It is a two-way street.  If you are ever feeling taken advantage of, consider the life you want and the path you are walking.  Perhaps that will shine some clarity on the subject.  Until you come to collision time of love and life, please enjoy a little thing called "La Vie."