Exorcise

Poets, novelists, philosophers, men and women of all shapes and sizes have spent millenniums contemplating one central question:

What is love?

Today, the question will finally be answered.

Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Often, after a day spent alone, with the sky bleak and overcast, I am not so sure. You cannot miss what you’ve never had. You can’t crave chocolate if you’ve never tasted it. For many years, I was used to being alone. I wanted something, but I didn’t always know what. These days, for good or bad, I know what I am missing.

It’s a rare thing in life to know that pulse-pounding, stomach-jolting love and to be able to say, “I love you” without it being a reflex or a cliché. I remember that whenever I said those words, they were the truest things I had ever said.

But, those feelings are not always returned, are they?

I love you; you just really like me. Ah, cue the violins.

That’s when love is not all flowers and rainbows. It’s the shadowy side of love—the aspect you don’t often find in the movies. You really only hear about in the blues.

Oh, my friend and I lived together for two years, dating for a little over three. But, you can only love one-way for so long, even when you’re supposed to be in a relationship. I sacrificed many of my dreams and goals for the sake of love and then walked away so that this person could pursue their own dreams and goals (the vague pronouns feel so wearying at times). In both cases, I did what I did because I was in love.

Love can feel like a catch-22. Sometimes, the only way to love someone is to let them go, even if they don’t come back. And, I know the mistakes I made—it takes two after all. I am not that person anymore—too insecure, too afraid of losing the person, holding on too tightly. I am unlikely to be such person ever again. I gave too much; I was not respected—something I tend to value more than love these days.

Love can harden you.

I live in a state I never wanted to return to, for the sake of love. Whenever I tell this to people, they smile and sigh and tell their own “love” stories. It seems everybody is “a fool for love” at some point or another—displaced, able to bond over the heartache with a laugh and a cold beer.

I think my parents feel that pulse-pounding love for each other. Neither of them had dated before. They made their mistakes with each other, and it only made their connection stronger. They have been married for 40 years.

And, we all have that first love. The one people sing about in all the songs. The first cut is the deepest. People wistfully say that you never forget your first love and that, deep inside, you never really stop loving them.

I wonder why that is. People also say that you rarely have “great loves” in your life—maybe only one or two.

I think that there might be more, but it takes awhile to recover from the one or two that you lost.

Do we have soul mates? Do you believe in love at first sight? Can we find “happily ever after”? I think how you answer these questions determines if you believe these things are true.

So, what is love? I can tell you. It is reaching out and clasping someone else’s hand—not because it’s expected, not because it’s the only opened palm available, not because your own hand has been cold too long. You reach out and clasp that hand and walk beside each other. No one walking farther ahead. No one allowed to walk a few paces back. You walk side by side.

And, when you clasp that hand, weave your fingers together with that other person’s, you know it’s love because it feels like something more than a throbbing heart or a stomach-ache, something more solid and lasting than simple desire.

The warmth of the hand, feel of the skin, the firm grip of recognition can be summed up in one word for the ages, perhaps a word as cryptic as love has ever been: it feels like home.

I'm a hopeless romantic--but a pragmatic idealist.

The word love is empty. These days, I would rather not even hear it.

This is why I can tell you what love is:

Love is the word that, when it truly is love, does not have to be spoken. Love is said best by saying nothing more than clasping a hand and walking side by side down whatever path you've chosen.