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What is Love?--


...I've been known to break into song, but don't worry--I'm not about to start singing the likes of either Howard Jones or Dee-Lite (although I like both artists just fine). It's just that the question ("what is love?", that is) came to mind as I made a doctor's appointment recently.

Now, that doesn't seem to make much sense, does it? You see, I made the appointment for Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day. My husband hates it. He believes it to be a vast commerical concoction, and feels that he can and will express his adoration for me whenever he wants, not just because someone tells him he should. Ah, he's such a rebel! (However, he may have a point, methinks; his logic is not altogether faulty.) I USED to hate Valentine's Day, too--for one simple reason: I never had a Valentine! By that I mean that I never had a significant other on or around Valentine's Day. I either had just broken up with someone, or hadn't been with anyone for ages. Ironically enough (given his feelings about the holiday), my husband is the sole reason for me finally enjoying February 14, and the first man I ever shared it with, dare I say, "wholeheartedly". He took me on a skiing trip (I hadn't skiied before, either) to New Hampshire and Vermont, where we frolicked in the snow, dined on fine food, and stayed in lovely and cozy inns whilst he regaled me with roses and other delights; in short, he made me feel like a queen among women. Now I love the Day of Love, and since he set the standard, he's not allowed to be cranky about it.

Of course, the whole idea of love--and what it is--goes way, way beyond Valentine's Day.

I was, for most of my life, the sort of person who fell in love easily. (Note that I say "for most of my life"; that had changed by the time I met my husband. It took me about three months to admit to myself--and to him--that I was in love with him. This was due to being close to too many fires prior to him...but I digress...AGAIN...)

When young and in elementary school, I had crushes aplenty. In junior high and high school, I thought I felt the true fires time and time again; alas, it was never reciprocated, for I was an odd 'n' artsy girl in a rich 'n' preppy world. (I think that I'm still scarred today by the fact that, during those years, boys used to ask me out as a joke...but that's another subject, and a topic for another time.)

Looking back, though, I don't think that I actually felt true love until I met...oh, wait, I'd best not write his name! (There IS all that business about "any resemblance to persons either living or dead is purely unintentional", or "names have been changed to protect the innocent"...) Anyway...I met this young man in college. I met him peripherally in my sophmore year, but started getting to really know him at the start of my junior year. He was my first "real" love, I think. He also happened to be the person to whom I lost my virginity. (I was lucky; my first time differed from many of my friends' in that it was a wonderful and pleasurable experience...but THAT is a story for another time, too!) In a way, I still love him, or at least the idea of him, if that makes sense. Of course, it all fell apart...and then that's when the bird of distrust began to hover overhead, and my short run of good luck ended.

I experienced disappointment after disappointment, and more angst than I care to recall. Some things just didn't click, and both parties went on their ways, no real harm done, but no connection retained; some things were more devastating, but ended up arriving at a fine end, with friendship ensuing; in other cases, there were debacles so horrific that, in one example, I still refer to the man involved as "my satanic ex-boyrfriend".

The sum of my interludes led me to a strange point, and there I stood, poised, as if at the edge of a cliff. I doubted my desirability and worth. I believed nobody. I felt that I would never find he who was "the one", that nothing would ever come to any good, that I was doomed to being alone.

Guess what? I STILL feel that way! However, one person made a few changes.

It wasn't me, you know; it was my husband. He is still working hard to alter my views. That's why I love him.

Oh, I have tested him, but he's tested me, too. We're different as night and day, which can be a test in and of itself, but it was a similarity that proved (and sometimes still proves) a challenge: our wounds. As Emmylou Harris sang in "Waltz Across Texas":

We both have known hard luck
And love that's gone wrong,
When the ghosts take the shadows and
The night takes too long...


....I guess that's part of what love is all about, then, and that's the answer that stands at the end of all these ramblings, the completion of my history and the start of my future.

Love is willingness--to wait, to work, to convince, to heal, to trust despite hurt, to believe despite lies, to accept, to compromise, to change, to stay the same, to give everything...

...or, as Saint Paul wrote:

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,

does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails.