Each February, for some daunting reason, I am compelled to write something about love as many find charming ways to honor those they love on Valentine’s Day while others avoid the occasion at all costs. I do not profess to be an expert at love (who is might I ask?) but such a complex, confusing and welcome emotion is most certainly worthy of literary commentary.
I love you — three little words that can have the most profound impact on the receiver. When someone tells you they love you, even if not completely reciprocated, I recommend that you accept this sentiment with great appreciation – as if someone just delivered a rare gift.
Those three little words can have different meanings for the presenter. You love your friends differently than you do your family. The love of family is profusely treasured and hopefully secure: I will always love you no matter what you do because you are family.
We love our friends because of the joy they bring us and the crazy times we have shared (even if we got into trouble). Some friends we don’t see or even speak to often, but when we do we know there’s a great affection that remains protected. Few kinds of love can be as long lasting and constant as a really true friend. On the other hand you can walk away from a friend who has betrayed you and never look back. They are still not family.
An altruistic point of view would be to love your adversaries by forgiving them. You might then be free of revenge and hate. However, if someone is trying to persecute you, then my preference is that you take care of yourself. You might ask what love has to do with it. Nothing. A little righteous indignation might just be good for your soul.
On a lighter note there’s the I just love you affirmation, which might be said to someone you know little of, but have made your life so much better, that the words expressed can only have love in them. I just love you, you say to your doctor who finds a remedy for your current malady and calls you at home to make sure you’re better (which doctors rarely do)!
And then of course there is the romantic love between two entwined people that lasts a lifetime or arrives with colossal passion like a tsunami and then passes quickly into the sunset. To love with passion takes risk because if unrequited it can be dreadfully painful and when not returned can leave scars on a broken heart for all future encounters. This is the kind of love that leaves us the most dumbfounded.
Who among us is an expert on love? Who knows anything more (or less) about love than the person feeling it? Perhaps the reckoning of love is first released when you are comfortable enough with someone —friend or lover — to safely share your inner most feelings, knowing that they will be well-received and honored. Albert Einstein would pen: how on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as love?
The feelings that you have for others make a difference to you…and certainly to them. At all costs please spread the wealth of love, giving and receiving at every opportune moment, out loud and with enthusiasm.
For all of you who are choosing to read yet again my raptures on this elusive subject….I just love you!
