What is the definition of love?


Is there a definition? How will you know? What about all of the different kinds of love? What if some people simply don’t know how to? I’ve asked these questions my whole life and now somehow I’ve created a space to inspect it, up close and personal.

And now that I am here, I have no idea what to say.

Tim is like my favorite friend in grade school, and a protector, and a space of compassion and acceptance. He’s like my kid, and my dad, and my brother all rolled into one. He looks up to me and he takes care of me, and he keeps up with me. I find myself hesitating, halting and fearful of actually making it mean something so big, and yet… if this relationship is not a description of what happens when you love someone, I don’t know what is.

It’s in the naming of things that we get all wrapped up I guess… until I call it love, it’s just Tim, sweet and familiar, a little haven called I’m not alone here, in all this… confusion we call life. But this relationship isn’t at all about avoiding loneliness. It’s the most aggressive partnership I’ve ever created with anyone. From the beginning we’ve been in deep respect of each other, and from there, a total stand for our mutual success as individuals. I love that about us most of all.

And in our most intimate moments we carry each other farther than anyone believes we can go, he takes me back to trust, quietness, intimacy, and ultimately an inner calm… and I meanwhile, push him far out on tree limbs that he didn’t even know existed. I challenge him to think differently and to push the envelope ever further. This is what they call compatibility, I suppose.

I’m putting all of this into words because if I don’t, I won’t really be present to the beauty that it is. I don’t ever want to take this for granted. It is an of course, but an astounding one, really! How or why did this happen? I think frequently about how I wanted certain things in a boyfriend, and how closely Tim matches up to those qualities I wanted. I love it! I love that my idea manifested into this, I’m thankful that I had the presence of mind to just surrender to it. To let go of whatever I was so focused on not having, to have the ability to be present to what is here, in him, and in me, and in us, together. It’s so fantastic. And I am often stuck somewhere between disbelief and tears and laughter every time I think of it, and try to nail it.

Inevitably it becomes impossible to nail, so I try to let it go. The need to name, box, identify and compartmentalize. Isn’t that just me trying to make things easier to understand? Or labeling it as some kind of fluke in the back of my mind? I’m a great big wall, a dam holding off all these emotions, that I hardly want to let myself feel… because in this space that I am in right now, I am existing in a certain peace, quietness, calmness about it all. Sometimes I wonder if I am staying outside of feeling this, truly. If I have some kind of feeling that I will ruin it if I do?

But all this is part of the head game we play with ourselves about having the things we want. I’m not going to sell out on myself like that. I’ve already done that, for long enough.