Thoughts on... love

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about “love.” What exactly is love? Every time I hear the word “love” I think about red roses and sunsets and other useless things that lend themselves into a romantic atmosphere but don’t really relate to love it self. Why is it that I can hear a word that is so important like love and only associate meaningless things?

The world today is full of people who think they are in love but are so confused by other people’s interpretations of love that they don’t have a clue what’s really going on. We even have a holiday just for the occasion of “falling in love”… Valentines Day. I always get a kick out of Valentines Day. People will go to great lengths to impress the one they love on this day of days and in doing so they end up spending way too much money on candy (especially chocolate), but who cares if you’re in love. Maybe this is part of the reason why people like me are so confused about the true meaning of love.

But let’s look a little closer at “love”, not the material representation of love but the thing itself: L-O-V-E. I always wondered when people actually know when they are “in love.” Is it after the first kiss, or maybe after they decide to get into a relationship. How do we really know? For some I imagine that they just come to a realization overnight. For others they might progressively fall in love after some time. Personally, I think that it comes when we genuinely put the welfare of others (the people we love) before ourselves. In a world so preoccupied with material things we sometimes lose sight of the importance of others and think only of ourselves. Selfishness is the murderer of love.

About a week ago I saw this old couple strolling through the park at night. They were just passing through, but I was able to take in their countenances in a moment. The woman looked so fragile and she was sitting gingerly in a wheel chair. Her husband was pushing her. As they passed directly in front of me a few paces off they passed through the light and the man bent over a said three simple words to his wife, “I love you”. It was dark, and cold, and I was miserable freezing in the park with only a light sweatshirt on. This was probably the least romantic setting I could have pictured in my shallow brain, but as I sat there watching this old couple passing through I realized what I had been looking for: true love. There it was, unadulterated and beautiful, love in its simplest and most precious state. At that moment I realized love isn’t something people just fall in and out off. I also learned it isn’t something that is dictated by the giving of gifts and flattering words. I think of it this way, when you love someone you are willing to sacrifice for them. You don’t think twice about it.