Love Is, Love Isn't
A
few years ago a friend of my attended a coaching clinic by a UCLA
coach. At the clinic the coach told those in the room she made sure kids
knew how to define things like hard work, persistence, and so forth.
However, she added that she made the players also define all the things
these words WEREN’T. She told the conference attendees that it’s crucial
to know all the sides of a definition so there are no questions on what
the true definitions need to be especially in a team or relationship
setting where more that one person is bringing a definition to the
table.
So these are all the things I believe love to be and not be...
You’ll get the gist of it as you read it.
What is love?
("Baby don't hurt me..." ;) )
Ok, bad joke.
I'm just kidding...
Do we all have the same definition?
I'm not convinced we do.
I know for a fact we don't.
I know what mine is.
I wrote it out years ago, and it's never wavered.
It never will.
But imagine a world where love is, love isn't.
Or where love is or was something else.
Perhaps something that cannot be expressed or felt.
In my musings I found myself having more questions than answers, that's for sure, but all of them led me to a better understanding of what love is, and, what love isn't.
It’s a lot of juxtaposition.
Antithesis.
By imagining what isn't, we can often see what is.
And my musings have made me to know that I never take it for granted in ANY form.
Especially when it's real.
Which is always.
It's always real, even when it feels like it isn't.
I. Imagine a world where love has to be purchased.
What currency would be enough to buy what I want?
What I need?
Is love a want or a need?
Where is that line?
And for which kind?
Would there even be enough to go around?
And if there was, why would it be for sale?
Would it be like a renewable resource?
What would I give for it?
Would I have to give my life?
Everything I own?
Would its worth change based on where you live, who you were, or what you look like?
Dollars or Euros?
How would, how could, love be measured?
The stores would have to set a price.
Love--Fixed.
Right?
"Hi, I'm here to buy a lifetime of love," a man says in the store to the clerk. "What will it cost me?"
Would he answer back with a number?
Or, "Your life."
"Sir, is that a sick joke? Here's all my gold. My savings. My life's savings."
"I'm sorry, but that's not enough. What else do you have at home?"
We say we would trade it all, give it all, yes, give anything for love.
Would you?
Would I?
In this world, I would become the poorest possession-wise if it meant being the richest in love.
In our world, I know what I would both give and give up.
Because I know what it's worth, and I know my worth.
Yes, it's not always about what you give up as much as it is what you give:
Real, authentic, true love is selfless, others first, attentive, passionate, and loyal.
In this world where love has to be purchased, one would have to consider the purchase of self-love, selfless love, and these before all others.
Well, you wouldn't have to do it in that order, but it's difficult to love someone fully without those two.
In our world, if you do these already, and know these things are priceless, you're over halfway there.
Could one negotiate the price?
"I only have $1000 set aside. How far will that get me? How many days? Months? Years? Would you take less?"
Sell it on the black market?
The deep dark web?
Would that then lessen its worth or increase it?
The screaming ad reads: Buy one year of love, get one free.
Or trade it?
A Facebook Marketplace post reads "ISO: LOVE. Will trade my kayak, bike, or oldest offspring."
You laugh at that last line.
In our current world people lose their families searching for love.
Hell, people lose their own selves, their own ways, their own souls looking for love.
Who would be in charge of selling it?
Hopefully not a sardonic asshole.
Hopefully someone understanding, someone who has all the love in the world themselves--and integrity.
Yet if they had all of those, wouldn't they give it away instead?
I would expect, or at least anticipate, someone, anyone with love to want to give it away for nothing.
Isn't that what the best of us already do?
II. Imagine a world where love wasn't a choice.
Who and how you love was ingrained in and predetermined for you.
You would know no other way of living.
You were born with it.
Every single human worldwide; everyone would simply love.
Would everyone love enough and there be no room for evil or hate?
Would love fix everything wrong on this earth?
Would people appear fake?
Would we have enough to go around?
Would we have the right one for us?
Or would our conversations be something like this:
"I love you."
"Yeah, but you have to."
Resentment.
Can you have both love and resentment within you?
I think so.
And so then, 8 billion paradoxes walking around loving, yet also harboring ill feelings.
8 billion living very much like we do now.
Only for us, is it:
"Are we the lucky ones where love is a choice?"
Or
"We are the lucky ones where love is a choice."
Sometimes love is both.
Sometimes love just happens unexpectedly as if we had no other choice but acknowledgement first, then words and action.
III. Imagine a world where you could only fall in love once.
Do you get to fall in love once but still have love for friends and family?
Does one of your parents get loved but not the other?
What about finding "the one"?
In that world, that is the ultimate and penultimate goal.
In our world, it's the goal for many.
Would that once be the right love?
How could you know or not know?
Or what if you loved once and if you fell out of it; that was it?
The end.
Nothing; no one else for you.
One person.
Who would you choose and why?
And who's to say they would even stick around?!
You both would probably want to be all in.
What if you loved so young that when you were older your chance was already gone?
Do you get to write off some "loves" as "infatuation" like an annulment?
Or would the prenup read "We will never say or admit to love just in case we split."
But... can you beat the system with a legal document or would the universe know your heart, soul, and mind, thus screwing you over?
And what would life be like after love if it ended?
The rest of your life.
Depression?
Heartache?
Indignation?
Indifference?
Or merely a series of relationships without love?
Souls walking around like many souls now who say,
"I don't want to get close to anyone.
I just want a good fuck now and then."
Oh, few actually SAY that, admit to that...
It's more like this:
Swipes left, swipes right.
What's your name again?
You're just one night.
IV. Imagine a world where there was no love.
Would that even be a world worth being in?
Would everyone just kill one another?
Would it be hate or do other things like kindness and gentleness reign?
Because if we didn't know what love was, would we even miss it, long for it?
V. Imagine a world where love could only be said, not felt.
What then would we feel?
Would words fall deaf on everyone's ears?
"I love you."
"Thanks. I know."
What then would we feel?
VI. Imagine a world where love could only be felt, not said.
Somehow I think I could live in this world.
You don't have to say how you feel if you can show it, after all.
But would sometimes the feelings be so much that you couldn't express it in words and need to?
However, I know we'd mourn the loss of poets.
Maybe...
Would there be poets?
Songwriters?
I mean, Shakespeare and Taylor Swift would be paupers.
Or they'd just have to write about country roads, death, and asshole exes.
After all, those are always popular motifs...
VII. Is love outside of time?
Think of the movie Interstellar, which explores the concepts of time and gravity juxtaposed with a mother-daughter-father love story.
Without giving the story away, love spans and does not follow the rules of time.
It reaches beyond.
I love those who have passed on before me.
My love exists here and now.
I still feel their love.
I still hear their words.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes,
"I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death."
Is death a part of time?
Is the afterlife a part of time?
And which time?
Whatever you believe about life after this life, space, stars, gravity, or time,
I believe love surpasses, transcends them all.
VIII. Imagine a world where love wasn't a chance, it was a guarantee.
No chance of heartaches, heartbreaks, break-ups, cheating.
I'd take a chance because I'd win every time.
Would life be too easy then?
Think of all of the songs and poems that wouldn't exist.
ABBA, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Celine Dion, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra.
They'd all have what they longed for and pinned in each of their doubting lyrics.
What lessons would we then learn?
These are all lessons you, I, anyone never wanted to learn in the first place because the test came first.
That lesson after the test thing is a complete bitch, and you know it.
There are plenty of other life lessons to be learned aside from those related to love.
So this world? It would be a world with less fear.
A lot less fear.
What a world it would be where I could bat a thousand.
What a world it would be where I’d know what chance I'd take.
Antithesis.
By imagining what isn't, we can often see what is.
And my musings have made me to know that I never take it for granted in ANY form.
Especially when it's real.
Which is always.
It's always real, even when it feels like it isn't.
_____________________________
I. Imagine a world where love has to be purchased.
What currency would be enough to buy what I want?
What I need?
Is love a want or a need?
Where is that line?
And for which kind?
Would there even be enough to go around?
And if there was, why would it be for sale?
Would it be like a renewable resource?
What would I give for it?
Would I have to give my life?
Everything I own?
Would its worth change based on where you live, who you were, or what you look like?
Dollars or Euros?
How would, how could, love be measured?
The stores would have to set a price.
Love--Fixed.
Right?
"Hi, I'm here to buy a lifetime of love," a man says in the store to the clerk. "What will it cost me?"
Would he answer back with a number?
Or, "Your life."
"Sir, is that a sick joke? Here's all my gold. My savings. My life's savings."
"I'm sorry, but that's not enough. What else do you have at home?"
We say we would trade it all, give it all, yes, give anything for love.
Would you?
Would I?
In this world, I would become the poorest possession-wise if it meant being the richest in love.
In our world, I know what I would both give and give up.
Because I know what it's worth, and I know my worth.
Yes, it's not always about what you give up as much as it is what you give:
Real, authentic, true love is selfless, others first, attentive, passionate, and loyal.
In this world where love has to be purchased, one would have to consider the purchase of self-love, selfless love, and these before all others.
Well, you wouldn't have to do it in that order, but it's difficult to love someone fully without those two.
In our world, if you do these already, and know these things are priceless, you're over halfway there.
Could one negotiate the price?
"I only have $1000 set aside. How far will that get me? How many days? Months? Years? Would you take less?"
Sell it on the black market?
The deep dark web?
Would that then lessen its worth or increase it?
The screaming ad reads: Buy one year of love, get one free.
Or trade it?
A Facebook Marketplace post reads "ISO: LOVE. Will trade my kayak, bike, or oldest offspring."
You laugh at that last line.
In our current world people lose their families searching for love.
Hell, people lose their own selves, their own ways, their own souls looking for love.
Who would be in charge of selling it?
Hopefully not a sardonic asshole.
Hopefully someone understanding, someone who has all the love in the world themselves--and integrity.
Yet if they had all of those, wouldn't they give it away instead?
I would expect, or at least anticipate, someone, anyone with love to want to give it away for nothing.
Isn't that what the best of us already do?
II. Imagine a world where love wasn't a choice.
Who and how you love was ingrained in and predetermined for you.
You would know no other way of living.
You were born with it.
Every single human worldwide; everyone would simply love.
Would everyone love enough and there be no room for evil or hate?
Would love fix everything wrong on this earth?
Would people appear fake?
Would we have enough to go around?
Would we have the right one for us?
Or would our conversations be something like this:
"I love you."
"Yeah, but you have to."
Resentment.
Can you have both love and resentment within you?
I think so.
And so then, 8 billion paradoxes walking around loving, yet also harboring ill feelings.
8 billion living very much like we do now.
Only for us, is it:
"Are we the lucky ones where love is a choice?"
Or
"We are the lucky ones where love is a choice."
Sometimes love is both.
Sometimes love just happens unexpectedly as if we had no other choice but acknowledgement first, then words and action.
III. Imagine a world where you could only fall in love once.
Do you get to fall in love once but still have love for friends and family?
Does one of your parents get loved but not the other?
What about finding "the one"?
In that world, that is the ultimate and penultimate goal.
In our world, it's the goal for many.
Would that once be the right love?
How could you know or not know?
Or what if you loved once and if you fell out of it; that was it?
The end.
Nothing; no one else for you.
One person.
Who would you choose and why?
And who's to say they would even stick around?!
You both would probably want to be all in.
What if you loved so young that when you were older your chance was already gone?
Do you get to write off some "loves" as "infatuation" like an annulment?
Or would the prenup read "We will never say or admit to love just in case we split."
But... can you beat the system with a legal document or would the universe know your heart, soul, and mind, thus screwing you over?
And what would life be like after love if it ended?
The rest of your life.
Depression?
Heartache?
Indignation?
Indifference?
Or merely a series of relationships without love?
Souls walking around like many souls now who say,
"I don't want to get close to anyone.
I just want a good fuck now and then."
Oh, few actually SAY that, admit to that...
It's more like this:
Swipes left, swipes right.
What's your name again?
You're just one night.
IV. Imagine a world where there was no love.
Would that even be a world worth being in?
Would everyone just kill one another?
Would it be hate or do other things like kindness and gentleness reign?
Because if we didn't know what love was, would we even miss it, long for it?
V. Imagine a world where love could only be said, not felt.
What then would we feel?
Would words fall deaf on everyone's ears?
"I love you."
"Thanks. I know."
What then would we feel?
VI. Imagine a world where love could only be felt, not said.
Somehow I think I could live in this world.
You don't have to say how you feel if you can show it, after all.
But would sometimes the feelings be so much that you couldn't express it in words and need to?
However, I know we'd mourn the loss of poets.
Maybe...
Would there be poets?
Songwriters?
I mean, Shakespeare and Taylor Swift would be paupers.
Or they'd just have to write about country roads, death, and asshole exes.
After all, those are always popular motifs...
VII. Is love outside of time?
Think of the movie Interstellar, which explores the concepts of time and gravity juxtaposed with a mother-daughter-father love story.
Without giving the story away, love spans and does not follow the rules of time.
It reaches beyond.
I love those who have passed on before me.
My love exists here and now.
I still feel their love.
I still hear their words.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes,
"I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death."
Is death a part of time?
Is the afterlife a part of time?
And which time?
Whatever you believe about life after this life, space, stars, gravity, or time,
I believe love surpasses, transcends them all.
VIII. Imagine a world where love wasn't a chance, it was a guarantee.
No chance of heartaches, heartbreaks, break-ups, cheating.
I'd take a chance because I'd win every time.
Would life be too easy then?
Think of all of the songs and poems that wouldn't exist.
ABBA, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Celine Dion, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra.
They'd all have what they longed for and pinned in each of their doubting lyrics.
What lessons would we then learn?
These are all lessons you, I, anyone never wanted to learn in the first place because the test came first.
That lesson after the test thing is a complete bitch, and you know it.
There are plenty of other life lessons to be learned aside from those related to love.
So this world? It would be a world with less fear.
A lot less fear.
What a world it would be where I could bat a thousand.
What a world it would be where I’d know what chance I'd take.
I’d already have the world.
IX. Imagine a world where love never gives up, never lets down, and never fails.
IX. Imagine a world where love never gives up, never lets down, and never fails.
We imagine ourselves often to be that person, that world.
No one sets out to fail.
But we do fail.
Others fail us.
Love is perfect, yet it's embodied in imperfect souls.
What a blessing and a curse it is to hold something so pure and beyond comparison in our hearts.
To hold something that we can give without end to those we love without end.
What would that perfect love look like?
Us on our best days?
All of our best days, best moments raveled up into one spotless life.
A kiss.
An embrace.
Kind words.
Forgiveness.
Staying.
Yes, not leaving.
I believe most of us want a perfect love.
I believe the best of us try our hardest to love perfectly.
_____________________________
X.
All of these things I wrote about in the previous sections are things love isn't, but sadly, some are things that love is.
I know so many people who have a skewed version and definition of what it is and should be, and their lives exude this. This is why so many get stuck in circular thinking, generational issues, and never break free into what it truly should be.
Part of those ideas were weaved into the worlds I imagined above.
Love shouldn't and doesn't have to be complicated.
A lot of the above? Complicated. Silly. Stupid. Disheartening.
I can tell you this: love is.
Love exists.
I'm glad it's nothing else it shouldn't be, at least to me.
Remember how I told you I wrote out my own definition?
Here it is:
Love is more than some butterfly or sexual feeling to me.
It's respect, it's concern, it isn't 'me-first', it's spiritual, it's unconditional, and rejoices in the differences and uniqueness of the other person.
It's putting up with idiosyncrasies at times.
It's comfort and honesty.
It's silliness and fun.
It's having tough and mature conversations but not letting them be deal breakers.
It's fighting for the relationship or friendship and believing it will not fail.
It's independence within the bigger picture that is the friendship or relationship--we have our own lives, but also something we share (that friendship or relationship).
And it's real, and I think one of, if not the most important thing in life.
You can love and not be in love.
I love a lot of people and am not in love with them.
And that matters.
Above all, the fact that I do love matters.
"I just want to look a little more like love" everyday.
And for all the things that love isn't,
I'm grateful I know what love is.
