“I don’t even know what love is.”
False. Lies. Junk. Malarkey.
Everyone knows what love is. They are just too afraid to admit it.
Media has conveyed love as this humongous thing – holding up flights for declarations of sappy sentiments, roses scattered like sprinkles across a smooth satin sheet or sucking face in the sloppy rain (without any mascara running). All of those things may be love to some people. However, they are love to fictional characters on a screen. Those people are not necessarily you. Media has scared people with these idealized images into thinking they don’t know about love because they don’t feel what we are made to believe is “normal.” It makes them believe they aren’t loved because they don’t share these same “normal” experiences.
Love is not normal.
The female Black Widow spider has been known to devour her male after mating. Harp Seal mothers abandon their young after twelve days of feeding. Humans, on the other hand, choose to love, that is what separates us from all other animals on Earth. Humans are not normal. Love is not normal.
Love does not have to be sexual.
Sitting in a rocking chair at 3:43 a.m. on a Tuesday before her 8 a.m. editorial meeting, a mother radiates love into the crying child she has nestled in her arms. Shoving one another in the ribs while playing an intense game of Mario Kart, best friends physically hit their love into one another’s sides and yell it into their ears. Sending a picture of a basset hound puppy one passed on the street, a sister electronically messages love to their dog-obsessed sibling. All of these things are love. Love does not have to be sexual.
Love does not have to be big.
Love is rubbing the smudge of peanut butter off your friend’s cheek before their big presentation. Love is closing the toilet seat. Love is making brownies at 11 p.m. because your friend just got dumped and chocolate might fill the void that their girlfriend just ripped out of their heart. Love is good morning texts. Love is wearing sweatpants and three day dirty hair and not caring if they see you. Love is going to a concert you don’t want to just to watch them dance. Love is remembering what kind of yogurt they like. Love is a two minute phone call. Love does not have to be big.
“I don’t even know what love is,” my friend exclaims over the phone. “How do I know if I love you?”
False. Lies. Junk. Malarkey.
“Everyone knows what love is, you are just too afraid to admit it,” I replied.
All I had done was say “I love you” as I prepared to hang up the phone. This was one of my dearest friends, not a crush, not a lover, not an ex-something or other.
A silence hung in the air where two words were supposed to go.
Then, I received her doubt-soaked response.
That’s why I am writing this now – to remind my friend and anyone reading this – you know what love is. Love isn’t something grand gifted unto only a privileged few, it is an everyday thing.
Just because it is an everyday thing does not by any means make it less beautiful or pure.
Love is tangible. It is here, right now. If you keep looking around, expecting to find it in new places, you will lose what you have.
Stop pretending love is like quantum physics; too much for you to comprehend. Love is something you were never taught. Everybody knows what love is, they are just too afraid to admit it.