What Is Love?
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“All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.“
Leo Tolstoy
Today is Valentine’s Day. A Hallmark holiday. A day to swim in sugary pinks and reds. A day to celebrate love.
But what is love?
We spend so much time uttering this word, but how many of us really know what it means? Is it even possible to know what love is? Is it different for each of us, a unique lens through which we glimpse the world? Is there an essence underlying our wishes and words and wanderings? Is love a fiction we create and cling to, a story we spin to sate our souls?
I am not a big Valentine’s Day person. I am happy to eat chocolate and help the girls craft cards. Husband and I, per tradition, will (if we aren’t too lazy) whip up some fondue and eat it together (yes, while watching The Bachelor). That will be it.
But I am a big love person. And maybe that sounds funny, but I’ll risk that it does. I believe in love. I don’t pretend to understand what it is, but I know that I feel it. I know that it is here, today and every other day. Rooted in my beating heart and dancing head. Love informs who I am, the questions I ask, what I understand.
This? This is the Valentine Toddler made at Preschool. It is hanging on the big bulletin board outside her classroom. Last week, Baby and I waited in the hallway for school to end. And I showed Baby the card and read her Toddler’s words: On Valentine’s Day, I want to give kisses to my little sister!
I read Baby these words and her eyes lit up. An enormous smile overtook her little face. Mommy, I just love kisses! she crooned.
This? This is love.
I do not pretend to know what love is, but I do know that it is everything.
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Happy Valentine’s Day. How do you plan to celebrate this holiday? What is love? Is it something that can be defined, or only felt? Do you believe love is everything or is that statement overly simplistic, lacking in nuance?
I just posted about love (so strange on this semi-holiday). For me, love is accepting someone as is quirks and all or loving those quirks. I think cleaning the kitchen shows love, I think weathering the ups and downs is love too. And any guy who watches the bachelor with you must love you.
Love is everything, I agree. I love the valentine toddler made. How sweet, your heart must have swelled to feel the love they have for each other . ” rooted in my beating heart and dancing head.” I love, love this! Happy valentine’s day, Aidan.
I think the older I get the more I understand love, yet I have such a long way to go. In my mind, love is accepting a person for who they are and that special feeling you have when you know you get to spend time with them…like a mini version of a kid on Christmas morning.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
I completely agree with your idea of love! It goes beyond romance and passion (though those are nice) and is far more dependent on being able to accept your significant other.
…After all love is all you need!
Great post! And now I am crying!!! Happy Valentine’s Day! I can not explain love or how it works or what it is. I just know that I am very blessed to have love in my life.
I hope you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day with your hubby and your girls!!!
Toddler is so sweet, what a lovely little valentine. We don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day – we’re not opposed to it, just not that interested. I think that love is the most important thing – our need for it and to share it is what binds all of us:)
Love the fondue tradition! That’s great. I left some chocolate croissants and tea in my husband’s car this morning, and he wrote a guest blog post for me last night. That’s about it for us! I’m just happy to acknowledge the day and show thanks for what we have.
I do believe love is everything–without it life is empty. This holiday tends to spotlight those who have a romantic love–but love comes in many more forms like you post so eloquently states. I absolutely adore my nearest and dearest and can’t imagine my life without his continue support and love. But I also am blessed to have the love of friends, brothers, parents, aunts and uncles–it is that love which makes life worth living. Knowing you aren’t alone and that someone knows you and loves you anyway.
My definition of love – or, more accurately, my understanding of it – is definitely shifting as I get older. I’ve never doubted, though, that it’s at the core of our human experience. Thanks for this beautiful reflection. xox
You hint at the difference between love and romance. The certainly can be linked, but they aren’t necessarily so. Romance lives in a narrow band of interpretation. But love is much broader. And I think that is what makes it so great. We can say that we love a spouse, child, season, event, TV show, food, or experience. We don’t mean the same thing by any of them, and yet love is still the right word. It is big enough.
In this vein, right now The Pioneer Woman is doing a photography contest on her site dedicated to the subject matter of love. There are some lovely shots and it’s interesting to see everyone’s interpretations of love. Click here to take a look.
I think love is the antidote to the loneliness you posted about last week. It’s those butterflies in your stomach at first, but also just the feeling later on in a relationship that no matter how much time you spend together, it will never be too much. And I think that applies to friends and family as much as romantic partners.
I don’t really do the whole Hallmark holiday either. I don’t need jewelry or an overpriced card to know I’m loved. Last year, our dinner was a variety of homemade pizzas that were so much fun we plan on doing it again. And just like last year, we’ll invite hubby’s brother (who doesn’t have a significant other but is super tight with us!) and have a wonderful evening just enjoying each other’s company and some good food. And perhaps a nice vintage of some homemade wine I have stashed in the cellar
I despise this day and the commercialism tied to it. I hate the fake romance and stupid fights it causes. I hate the tension and anger.
Love isn’t any of those things. Love is a fire that burns eternally in your heart. When I think of trying to describe love I think of holding water in the palm of my hand.
If I squeeze my hand to hold it tighter it runs away, flows right through my finger tips. But if I hold still for a moment I can see it.
Jack,
How funny, I was going to use a similar analogy. If we love someone enough, we have to be willing to let them go, not holding them clenched in our fist…our toddlers as they grow, our teenagers into their own lives. Sometimes even a partner/spouse. Love is wanting the best for their lives, of being able to put aside our own desires and clinginess for their good. Ok, don’t know if that was elegant at all…but you put it beautifully, thank you.
And I totally agree…Hallmark be damned. Valentine’s should be celebrated every day of the year, not dictated to us on a particular date.
Aidan, I LOVE the story of the girls–that brought a huge smile!
I think that age and experience teach us about how tenuous our grip on love can be. It is not really something that you can squeeze so easily or you risk losing it.
Intriguing questions. I certainly believe in love (like most people), and understand that there are many sorts of love, as appropriate to individuals, their roles in your life, and as you say – “nuance.”
I consider love an essential, but it is not all there is, nor is it all that is required for a relationship to work. Ask any divorced person, or anyone who has been betrayed by love – or more specifically – differing expectations of love.
Common values are essential to relationship. Character and respect are more foundational than even love. And love in all its variations – friendship love, romantic love, familial love, parental love (even those, only categories) – each has a place and its own set of expressions. All of it, fragile and precious, and never to be taken lightly.
I believe in love but think I just haven’t found it yet. Sure I love my friends and family but I guess it just isn’t the same.
As you get older do you adjust and compromise your views? Do you settle? Sometimes I think I’ll never find it and I am always chasing it. Well at least chasing “the one”.
I’ve got amazing friends and am always surrounded. So I always feel their love. It’s funny some friends met and married their husbands after a really short period. I guess you just know. It isn’t forced. it just happens but I truly beleive it is work.
Sweetest. Valentine. Ever.!!!! So adorable.
Love is impossible to explain but also impossible to mistake. The warmest, best feeling ever, especially when reciprocated. Happy Valentines Day!
I can’t specifically define love but I feel it every day.
Charles Shultz equated love with happiness. And I agree with what he wrote-
HAPPINESS IS FINDING A PENCIL.
PIZZA WITH SAUSAGE
TELLING THE TIME.
HAPPINESS IS LEARNING TO WHISTLE.
TYING YOUR SHOE FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME.
HAPPINESS IS PLAYING THE DRUM IN YOUR OWN SCHOOL BAND.
AND HAPPINESS IS WALKING HAND IN HAND.
HAPPINESS IS TWO KINDS OF ICE CREAM.
KNOWING A SECRET.
CLIMBING A TREE.
HAPPINESS IS FIVE DIFFERENT CRAYONS.
CATCHING A FIREFLY.
SETTING HIM FREE.
HAPPINESS IS BEING ALONE EVERY NOW AND THEN.
AND HAPPINESS IS COMING HOME AGAIN.
HAPPINESS IS MORNING AND EVENING,
DAY TIME AND NIGHT TIME TOO.
FOR HAPPINESS IS ANYONE AND ANYTHING AT ALL
THAT’S LOVED BY YOU.
HAPPINESS IS HAVING A SISTER.
SHARING A SANDWICH.
GETTING ALONG.
HAPPINESS IS SINGING TOGETHER WHEN DAY IS THROUGH,
AND HAPPINESS IS THOSE WHO SING WITH YOU.
HAPPINESS IS MORNING AND EVENING,
DAYTIME AND NIGHTTIME TOO.
FOR HAPPINESS IS ANYONE AND ANYTHING AT ALL
THAT’S LOVED BY YOU.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKKjqzkGo3o
Charles Shultz was right, love is happiness. It is what fills our days and what gets us through the tough times.
That was so sweet of your toddler to write that about her younger sister! That just goes to show that you and husband are modeling the RIGHT thing for them and showing them (not just telling them) what love is. I, too, am not big on Valentine’s Day. Not because I am single, but because it’s just isn’t my “thing.” But on today, just as every other day, I chose to be grateful for my amazing and beautiful son, whom EVERYDAY reminds how blessed I am to love him, be loved by him, and be called his Mother. Happy Valentine’s Day to you and your darling family, Aidan! xx
Love is a pair of warm, worn slippers, an old pair of sweats, a comfy blanket wrapped around me on a cold winter day. No pretense, just simple comfort where I can be myself.
I believe in love too. It is something that moves me every day, through the bad and the good. I believe it sustains me.