Thoughts on Love

People have often told me that you just can't imagine what it feels like to love someone the way you love your own children. Some people have said it as an expression of the love they feel for their kids and an excitement for me to someday feel that too. Other people, I've felt like say it more like they belong to this exclusive club I had yet to be a part of. Either way, I always wondered if I really couldn't imagine what it would be like. I knew what it felt like to think about having babies; were my own feelings really that limited by lack of experience?
And, more importantly, I felt like I had experienced a love kind of like that. I was 11+ when my little sister was born. Our niece and nephew followed soon after. I often called my sister "my baby" as an expression of how I felt for her. I was there on her first day of kindergarten and I cried too. I was there to pick Gina up from school and try to help deal with some of her issues with her mom even when she was so young. And Jamesy- my Jamesy- was only 2 or 3 when I graduated from high school and I spent a lot of time taking care of him. He's getting ready to graduate from high school and I still feel like he's my boy. The love I have for him, for all 3 of these kids, will never go away.
I have always referred to these kids as my kids, my babies. This was not at all intended to take away from their parents or anything like that. It was just an expression of how much I loved them.
I have a daughter now. I am so in love with her. That's what amazes me- the infatuation, the awesomeness, the fascination- I feel for her. In a lot of ways, it is like having a crush on someone and falling in love. That was a bit of a surprise. But honestly? The love I feel for her really is no more than what I've felt before, especially for my three other kids. I have more obligation and responsibility for Rayne, but I really feel like I've felt this way before. To me, it doesn't diminish what I feel for any of these people, it just compounds it.

Jeff said something once about me loving the baby more than I love him. I really hope he doesn't feel that way or feel neglected, although there has been a lot of adjustment. I can honestly say that the baby has 100% of my heart and Jeff too has 100% of my heart and soul. Doesn't that make 200%?
It does seem to me that some people's hearts are compartmentalized or something. If they've given- ever- any part of their heart to someone, it doesn't exist to give to anyone else. I can see that if you once love someone, no matter how it turns out, you might always love them. A part of you may always be theirs or with them or whatever. But is it really so untouchable ever again?

Which brings me to romantic love. I've been wondering why we insist on it being so exclusive? Not that I don't think it should be, I just wonder where that notion comes from (and no, Kiki, I'm not being unromantical, just asking the question). My grandmothers had to live with polygamy. How in the world did they deal with that? Why are some of us so jealous with such strict notions of fidelity while others have some other definition with lines of "just friends" drawn supposedly without a threat to the one true thing?