Mature love to me.

I miss love. It's been awhile since I've been in love, I'd like to be there again.This is the first time in a long while that I'm actually feeling this way so I'm taking it as a good sign. Before, I would always say it with a 'but' at the end: 'I want someone, but...' Now it's; 'I want someone and...' Well, the 'and' now is it will be more mature and right than anything I've had in the past. My gut tells me this next love will actually be it, my husband hunt will be over and the credits can run. (Yeah, no sequels.)

I've been thinking a lot about mature love and what it means to me. When we're younger, I think dating and the relationships we go through and experience prepare us for what we do and do not what in a relationship, and as we get older, we're suppose to recognize this more quickly in others so we can weed out the good and the bad so we can find out mates, settle down and start our families. (Some have much more success at this and others.) But here's what I've found so far:

Mature love makes you a better person. The person you're with makes you grow and mature to become more than you are now than who you were when you were single.

Mature love isn't petty.  We shouldn't be experiencing the same jealousy and insecurity issues in our 30's that we did in our 20's. It is beyond the pettiness that existed in our younger days. It was in our younger days for us to experience, know, and move beyond. If you keep ending up with people with the same issues, maybe the problem doesn't lie with them.

Mature love is adapting. There are times where we hit ruff patches and hard times, family losses. Instead of the usual 50/50, it may be 90/10, 30/70, or 63/37 it'll just happen that way sometimes, cause in life, shit happens. The question is how you handle it.

Mature love is being on the same page from day 1. I like red meat, politics, white guys, guns, sex, and sci-fi. Marrying a vegan, non-news watching Nigerian anti-gun Liberal virgin is not even in my library. You need to talk with each other. Often.

Mature love isn't selfish. If you're thinking more of 'we' instead of 'me', you're on the right path. It's not about putting the other person first, it's about putting the two of you as a unit, together, first.

I want a mature love, someone who can make me giddy and give me butterflies yet not be stupid/irresponsible in love. Now that I'm older and wiser and more ready, I can do that. I'm a little old for stupid teenager antics.