Love is....

Every so often, there is a small one frame cartoon that appears in the newspaper that has cherub-like naked characters, entitled "Love is..." and each day, there will be something like "Love is...choosing each other." What are the different types of love?

And of course in Catholic Sunday School, there is always the discussion of the different types of love agape, unconditional, I-would-die-for-you-no-questions-asked love or phileo- brotherly/sisterly/comradeship love...and then there was romantic love- get-married-have-kids-grow-old-together love. Funny how when you get older, these lines become blurred. I still believe that you can love people in different ways, but its not as clear cut as in Sunday school. Love is a complicated, all-consuming entity- it is not just a feeling or a flight of fancy. It is a bird that comes to make a nest in your heart.

The one thing that I did learn though, in Sunday school, and its not something that just is Christian, its universal, is that "Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends." 1Corinthians 4-8. The love of our friends gets us up out of bed each day, even when every inch of us screams to not get up and start the day. Love is something that we cannot live without...

I think the favorite cartoon of mine I saw was "Love is...leaping into the unknown." And it is. You don't know what you will give, get, or lose in the process of falling in love and loving the other person. If I have learned anything, while you may sometimes get hurt, showing and exhibiting love to others is perhaps one of the most rewarding things in life- yet can also be one of the most vulnerable, exposing, soul-baring moments. I guess one of my fears in life is to one day turn around and realize that overnight, someone who loved me, no longer loves me- only because giving your love to another person is investing so much emotion and your own life into that person, whether they are a friend, sibling, family member, or significant other.

Now here is my attempt at a "Love is..." feel free to add your own in the comments section :)

"Love is...realizing that your life has been made better for knowing another person."