what is love...

a fellow blogger, chai anyone?, posed the question "what is love?" and her challenge intrigued me, set me to exploring within myself what it is that happens inside that i then call "loving" another. what do i feel when i believe i feel love? what do i think it means when i say "i love you"? this has opened my explorations on love (i welcome your own thoughts in your comments).

i couldn't rush my answer but rather spent a couple of days pondering your question. i found i needed to explore deeply and ever more deeply what love really means inside me. i feel this...

infatuation, desire, addiction, need...sometimes are wrapped in the garments of "love" and sometimes even "love" gets covered by them.

in seeking my answer to you i explored and discovered i could not define love as "wanting to be with someone (though often i want to be with someone i love)," "identifying with someone (i felt identifying with someone is a big part of love)," "admiring, respecting, truly deeply liking who and what someone is and how he lives his life"...because i could recognize in my life loving someone without that corresponding belief or emotion. i explored more deeply.

i knew i had different kinds of love (love for a friend, for a teacher, for a relative, for a child, for a lover) and i knew my definition had to fit every expression of love. i also knew of the people i love, there are some i am closer to and want to spend time with more than i do others so love seems to have varying degrees and levels. i looked at all the people i love and challenged myself to find the underlying truth in every one of the relationships.

i landed on this...

for me, love is acceptance. purely, truly accepting another. i can love someone (accepting her) and agree with everything about her, or i can love someone (accepting her) even if i disagree with her. every instance of love in my life seems to be connected with acceptance.

the greater the acceptance, the deeper and richer the love.

i do not claim to be right. these are merely my beginning thoughts on defining love. if my thoughts are errant, however, i will claim that love undeniably brings acceptance...

thank you, chai, for presenting me a probing question and for pushing me to discover deeper things about my own feelings...

photography by permission cindy lee jones