Love, Actually.

I'm a big fan of animated shorts. No, not dancing pants, you smart arses - short films, often computer-animated or in pixilation. Pixar's been doing these for years, usually showing them just before cinema screenings of their full-length feature films, but in the last 5 years short films have come on in leaps and bounds. Helped in part with a nod of recognition by awards from big-name bodies such as the Oscars and Sundance, and aided by advancements in computer and graphic animation, animated shorts and short films are fast becoming the most modern and groundbreaking area of cinema. A great website for checking these out is http://www.shortoftheweek.com. Give it a browse, you'll be surprised at the stuff that's out there. A few of my favourites include French Roast (a charming little French animation about the kindness of strangers), Alma ('Alma' means 'soul' in Spanish - watch it to understand), and The Division of Gravity (a slightly pretentious but nonetheless accurate depiction of the life and death of a relationship). My all-time favourite is actually used for a music video for what I think is an incredible track by the Drum'n'Bass artist S.P.Y. It uses clips from a short film by Spize Jonze called I'm Here so effectively and beautifully that you wouldn't know it wasn't an official music video. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's the best music video (unofficial or otherwise) I have ever seen. If you do nothing else with your day, watch it: 

To me, this is love. Love, I believe, is different for everyone. It changes with age, with the person whom you are loving, and the way in which you express it. I always said I'd know when I was in love when I could honestly say that I would willingly give my life to another. So far, I've only been able to say that twice. When I love someone, I usually write a lot. Lyrics, journals, poems - it's my way of making something intangible, tangible; something I fear to be fleeting, permanent. Unfortunately, after relationships end, these are not things that you want to cart around with you to remind you of what once was, so I tend leave them at home. However, being back for Christmas, and watching By Your Side, inspired me to dig them out, for, (to quote Love Actually) "if you can't say it at Christmas, when can you say it...". 

The first thing I found was a book. It was given to me for Christmas in 2009 by my first serious boyfriend of over a year, and contains our whole relationship in its pages. He had painstakingly retrieved and glued in all our letters, emails, pictures and songs we had penned together, for one another, and I had added to it after our relationship ended. In it, I found lyrics that I had written when I was 17 - lyrics that symbolised what love meant to me at that age. Here is a snippet of what I wrote:

Light two candles in the dark,

One for me, one for my heart

Make a wish and blow them out -

No secret who I wish about.

Will you stay and never leave?

No need to doubt as I believe

That we can make it you and me

No arguments, I guarantee

(Chorus)

Here's a song I wrote for you,

Nothing special but it'll do

Remember me when you hear this play

A way of being with you every day.

Ok, so it's not Shakespeare. Or even Bob Dylan. But it's a testament of love as a teenager, in it's wholesome, naive and optimistic glory. I decided to keep digging, and eventually came across a more recent artefact of romantic ramblings from the last year: a journal I had kept over the summer. In amongst the inane day-to-day recording of my life, I had written what love meant to me at this time, for a different person, nearly 4 years later:

"It is a feeling that never goes away, it is a longing, an unwavering certainty that you would do anything for that other person - even so far as giving your own life for theirs...I can’t think of anyone who would love you so unconditionally, so unselfishly, and who would do so much for you - come what may. That embraces and loves your merits and your flaws equally...I believe, in love, you accept and adore the imperfections, the quirks - it’s what makes the other person interesting. It’s what makes them them..."

After thinking about it for a while, I started to wonder what other peoples' 'meaning' of love was, so, rather than listen to some Leonard Cohen or Coldplay, I decided to conduct a little survey. Here are the results:

1. Have you ever said 'I Love You' and didn't mean it?

57% of you said YES

2. Have you ever truly been in love?

86% of you said YES

As a follow-up question, I then asked: What does being in love mean to you? I've decided to keep this anonymous, but here are some of your answers...

• "Being able to be completely yourself and not worry about scaring them away because you're both as strange as each other!" 
• "Knowing there is one person you can truly trust and rely on, knowing that you never have to make apologies or compromise who you are, knowing that feelings are honest and true and are going to last, knowing that when everything else around you falls apart you still have that one person who has this exclusive ability to make everything better, knowing that there is only one."
• "Feeling as though there is nothing that can not be conquered! You are completely safe and yet as free as you want to be. No fear or apprehension, just pure belief."
• "Being totally comfortable with someone whilst at the same time finding them sexy beyond belief, to enjoy them taking care of you and vice versa. I think although you should always have trust and belief in the relationship, it's good to have a knowledge that if they left you, your life, as you know it, would end..."
• "Having complete trust in the other person and knowing they do in you. And wanting to share every success, failure & experience with them as you know they will love you whatever."
• "So many things - it is laughing like you never have, smiling ear to ear, crying over the smallest argument and feeling every inch of your being die when you think you have lost them or they are hurt. It is such a complete, raw emotion that it is like a drug making you feel everything 100 times more."
• "Being in love means being a team. Putting the other person in front of you and being willing to do anything for them. Whenever you are thinking about things you always think of them first. I knew exactly when I fell in love because I always thought about what he would have thought before me and taking into consideration other his feelings before mine. It's when you feel altruistic and forget about what you want or need just to compromise for the other persons emotions instead."
• "It is very subjective, but for me love is definitely not a compromise... I agree love, or any relationship, is based on teamwork but in a team you don’t put someone before yourself, just as you would never put yourself before them. You stand side by side and support each other in every endeavour. Altruism isn’t reserved for love and love shouldn’t determine your character, I think it’s very important to be happy independent and to maintain that relationship with yourself regardless of relationship status... I guess the defining feature of love, in my perspective, is that it is healthy and mutual. Love is, to me, about a reciprocation of emotion because one of the loveliest things about being In love is knowing that someone loves you back, trusting in that and finding empowerment in it..."
• "It's a level of unconditional trust with someone. The kind of report where you can be in a room with the same person and that in itself makes you incandescently happy, even if you're both doing your own thing. I have found love often to be inexplicable, but it's a level of comfort and happiness that can't be matched."
• "Having the ability to overlook one another's flaws and respect each others differences, to feel comfortable in your own skin whilst wanting to be the best you can be with them, to hurt when they hurt and to feel indestructible whilst in each others presence."

Well. It would seem that "love, actually, is all around..."

Merry Christmas.

Love,

Belle x