Chapter 11, Page 167 after "Love and Friendship" title, after 3rd full paragraph. I would like to re-name this piece "Love and Friends as Roommates" (I feel that this chapter focuses a lot on loving our significant others but not much on other areas of love. I don't know if that was the original intention, but I thought that a different approach to or a lesson on love would be applicable to anyone.)
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I’ve heard it said, “Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud.” I knew intellectually that love was not a feeling, but I had not experienced a test of love until college. Being away from family, especially my mother, I hadn’t realized how much I lacked love for others. During my fourth year of college, I moved to a studio with a close friend of mine. Little did we know that our subtle differences with respect to social preferences and academic habits would cause tension. Little things started to bother me about her. And little things I did bothered her. She would ignore me and I wouldn't say a word to her. This went on for about four months of the beginning of the school year.
What happened in the end? The remaining five months of our stay together had drastically changed. My roommate started to do these little random acts of kindness for me. She’d ask me if I’d want a bottle of water before I went running. Shockingly, I said yes and accepted it. The following week, she had left a zip-lock bag of nicely cut apples. I was quite surprised and confused. One random day, I read through my old journals and found a post-it taped into one of my journal pages that she had written me just one year ago. I remembered the fun times that we had and reflected on the events that led to the current state of our relationship. I realized that I didn't want to lose her as a friend. That day, I approached her as she was sitting on her desk. She faced me and we began our night of reconciliation. I started to cry and confessed my hatred and frustration towards her. She did the same. That night, we hugged and “made-up.” Now, after graduation, she is one of my closest friends.
I thought I had truly cared and loved my friend, but when differences and miscommunication arose, all my thoughts and actions toward her completely changed. Love is definitely not a feeling. Feelings are a result of the love that we have. During college, you will meet a lot of different kinds of people. Depending on the size of the student body, the ratio of "weird" people will vary. Love is verb that requires an action. I had experienced and learned that love is definitely not a feeling and that sometimes, the good feelings are completely absent. What I learned was that little random acts of kindness have a positive, deep impact on an individual. When I find that I have no positive feelings for a friend and I want to invest in the relationship, I do simple acts of kindness for him or her. As time passes, whether it takes 2 weeks or 3 months, feelings of love does occur. I can confidently say that after this experience, I have learned to love through my actions and to communicate on a deeper level. People come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn. We are led to the people who help us most to grow and if we let them, we grow as a person. QUOTED from the song "For Good" by Glinda in the Wicked Musical at http://www.wickedthemusical.com/