What is Love? (Baby, Don't Hurt Me)

L'amour est Vrai (a sonnet)

I heard them say, love, thou art blind 

Yet for me thou dost see 

You lift me up and thou art kind 

Why then must they all flee?

They told me all you bring is pain 

But something is amiss 

They must have never stood in rain 

And shared a longing kiss

Sure my heart has broken some 

But love, that's not your fault 

Thou art not blind, nor deaf, nor dumb 

Thou art perfect, without fault

If heartache, love, is what they feel 

They must feel fake for thou art real

I wrote that poem twelve years ago under the pen-name After Fall. I was fifteen. I didn't know what love was then, and I'm barely figuring it out now. But for as long as I can remember, I have always been trying to solve that puzzle. What is love? 

For the last little while, I've been observing and deciphering different views of love. For example, I have a two year old daughter. She loves watermelon, chicken nuggets, Tarzan, The Muppets, her blankie, and her paci. Sometimes I think if she had to choose what she loves the most, watermelon would have me beat. I've learned to interpret her coy smiles and rare kisses as symbols of her love for me. I think she would define love as comfort. Similarly, I work with teenagers. Depending on the student their loves could range from music to drugs to movies to friends to significant others to sleep to parties, or all of the above. They are a bit more complex. The line between love and hate for them is so slim that their opinions can radically change overnight. Their views of love are enigmatic, yet I can clearly see that their definition of love, any way you look at it, is passion.

So what's my definition of love? When my husband told me he loved me for the first time, I did not automatically say it back. True story. I was young, and my ideas of love were constantly in question. I did not want to say something if I could not define it. I had to know what it meant before I could decide if I felt it. I had to turn inward, do a lot of soul searching I suppose, and really figure out what it meant for me to love someone.

I'd like to briefly talk about what I have learned in my 28 years about what love is, and what love is not. Of course, there are so many types of love: familial love, friendship love, your love for God and your fellow man. For the sake of this post, I'm going to be primarily talking about romantic love because I feel that that type of love is the source of the most confusion. However, many of these things, I think, can apply to other relationships as well.

So here we go. The definition of love, according to me.

Love is not...

• Lust: If you're more attracted to their body than their soul, it isn't love. If you're turned on by the way they look but not by their intelligence or ambition, it isn't love. If you have to be physical all the time or you get bored, then you're not in love.
• For our own gratification: Love is not about you at all. If you're in it for yourself, you will be disappointed. A "what's in it for me" attitude with lead to nothing but heartache. Selfish love isn't love at all. 
• At First Sight: Infatuation. Interest. Curiosity. Excitement. These are all things that can happen in an instant. Love, however, does not happen at first sight. No matter how romanticized that notion is in film or literature, love takes time to develop. Love, much like a seed, can be planted in an instant, but does not fully develop until it is nourished and given time to grow.
• Limited: I have been amazed at how much our capacity to love increases based on our circumstances. Our hearts are like the Tardis, or Mary Poppins's magical bag, bigger on the inside and capable of storing endless amounts of love. When I got married, I thought I could never love someone else as much as I loved my husband. Then we got a puppy, and I thought I could never love someone as much as I loved that puppy. Then we had a baby, and I thought I could never love ... you see the pattern here. Love is not limited by space, and it is not limited by time. Some people think "Oh, well I was in love once. That was my shot, and I blew it." There is no finite window for finding love. We get an endless number of chances, if we merely open ourselves to the possibility. The only way love is limited is by our own fears and insecurities. Which leads me to the next point -- 
• A waste of time: So many young people these days look around at the divorce rates or their own broken homes and think, "screw this -- love isn't worth the trouble because it won't work out anyway". This attitude leads to years of pain. One must have faith in love in order to find success in it. Sure, there will be hiccups along the road, but when it works out, and it will work out if it is clearly defined and you have faith in it, then it is so worth it. 

Love is...

• Service: If you love someone, serve them. Go out of your way to make their day a little better. If you love someone, your greatest joy will come from seeing them happy. Here's a great example. My husband went out of town for the weekend on a road trip. Before leaving, he went grocery shopping and restocked our fridge, replaced the water jug on our cooler, took out the trash, cut up the watermelon, and did the dishes, all so I wouldn't need to worry about those things while he was gone. He had to pack, get his car fixed up, and tie up a bunch of loose ends before he left, but he took the time to be sure our daughter and I were taken care of. That's love.
• Selflessness: This goes along with service, but true love is placing someone else's needs before your own. Do you know when I finally realized that I did, in fact, love the man that would become my husband? I realized that no matter what, I wanted him to be happy. If that meant I had to move to Alaska to be with him, I'd do it. If it meant that he would be happier with someone else, I'd accept that. If it meant he wanted to live in a van down by the river, I'd think he was weird, but I'd do it, because above everything else, I wanted him to be happy. I had never felt like that before. It had always been about me, me, me, until him. Love isn't thinking less of yourself; it's thinking of yourself less. 
• Joyful work: People always say love is hard work, and in a sense, they're right. You have to communicate, sometimes its painful to open up and work through things, you may disagree or fight occasionally. Life is tricky to navigate alone, but adding another person into the mix can make things even trickier. That being said, love is hard work that makes you happier than you've ever been before. Working through trials, facing challenges, those things should bring you closer together and leave you feeling fulfilled. You should feel at peace, elated in fact by the state of your relationship. If you ever feel that your relationship is hard work, and you are miserable all the time, that isn't love. Love is hard work, but rewarding; it uplifts you, and makes you a better person. 
• A partnership: This one is simple. Real love is friendship. Camaraderie. It is a partnership with another - two people working side by side. There is no leader and follower. There is no master or commander. This is not slave labor. Love is a partnership, two people equally yoked and working toward a common goal: eternal happiness. 
• Fierce loyalty: Last but certainly not least, love is loyalty. When you love someone, you don't check out other people. You don't think about checking out other people. You don't have a "work spouse". You don't chat with anyone online or via text if you wouldn't be okay with your significant other reading the conversation. You don't say or do anything that would violate their trust. You don't speak negatively about your love. You don't tell other people about things that should be kept between the two of you. You don't keep secrets from one another. Anything less than absolute loyalty isn't love.

What do I know, right? Well, I don't have a PhD on the subject. But I am in love. And I know how it feels. That being said, I will leave you with this. You have to learn what love is for you. If you don't already know, make an effort to figure it out. If you can learn to define love for yourself, it will save you from bad relationships and broken hearts. If you do already know how you define love, hold on to that definition and never let it go. When times get hard and you start to question your love, remember the depth of your definition, and fight the good fight.

After all, the Beatles said it best: love is all you need.

Photo Courtesy of HubPages
Listen to the audio recording of this podcast here.