What is Love?

How do we know what love is?

I mean, we have all heard of love, have we not?  We have heard different accounts of what love feels like, looks like, and should be like.  However, how do we REALLY know?  Love isn’t a tangible thing; it cannot be physically seen or touched.  Does love even feel the same to each person who experiences it?  How will we ever really know?

Love is one of those amazing mysteries that one cannot completely explain.  I think everyone experiences different levels of love throughout their life, although I can only speak solely for myself.  During my lifetime, I have encountered many levels and variations of love.  Each type of love I have come across in my life is a blessing that I never take for granted.  But I know love is the best thing there is in life.  Period.

First, I experienced my family’s love.  This, as with many types of love, is sometimes like a roller coaster as we sometimes become angry with each other,  Sometimes it’s over little things like the time my sister stole my brand-new dress to wear before I could and then lied to me about it.  And then there are the big things that make the family love hard to feel such as something we see as a betrayal by our closest loved ones and turmoil stirs in the home life.  But, at the end of the day, in my family I always know there is comfort in those who know me best; at my youngest, during my teenage trouble causing days, when I was sick, and when I was silly.  Nothing compares to family love.  After all, momma knows best.

Then, there is friendship love.  This is an amazing feeling I get from my closest friends who are by my side no matter what I am going through in my life.  They never fail to surprise me by their support and words-of-wisdom during the toughest of times.  Friendship love means they have my back as I have theirs.  That type of love is me making fun of the way my best friend laughs, but if anyone else so much us looks at her the wrong way, they will have me to deal with!  I can always count on the friend love to bring out the teasing and the laughs but also that perfect understanding and alliance.

Next comes the puppy, first-crush love.  Or maybe even the second love or third…. it’s that guy in high school that gave me butterflies by waiting for me in the morning by my locker.  I was young, he made me happy, and I had teenage hormones.  Not that the love didn’t mean something, because it meant a lot.  The young love is what made me realize the prospect of deep love and opened my eyes to how I should (and in some cases in my life, how I shouldn’t) be treated.  Without those experiences, I wouldn’t have been opened up emotionally in a way I hadn’t before known to be possible.

There are other forms of love that I know are out there that I have not yet had the ability to experience.  For example, that love you have for your child.  I can only look forward to and wonder what it’s like to have the love for my own child.  Someday hopefully I will get to write about those feelings as I know it will be incredible, undying, and deep.  One day, I too will get to feel and try to describe this special love.

Then comes what I refer to as true love, from my soul mate.  This is unlike anything I have ever felt for anyone but him.  The love I feel both for and from him is earth altering to me.  I don’t think will the earth altering part will ever change as it hasn’t even let up slightly in all the time we have been together; there are still butterflies and every deep kiss feels like our first.  Now I am not saying certain people cannot have more than one true love or soul mate, and as a matter of fact I believe that to be the case for many people who lose their loved ones.  However, for me, I am just basking in the happiness and glow of the true love we have for each other and don’t see that fading for us.  Here’s what sets the true love apart:  He knows me best and can make me melt with one small glance.  When we are in a room full of people, I am so attuned to him and how he is feeling.  He is my family, my best friend. and my true love.  And that is a truly amazing thing to have in life.

But then, this is all just my experience.

© 2016 Jacquelyn Staggs