What is Love?

What is love?

Is it willing to die for someone?

Is it living with someone?

Is it marrying someone?

Is it having kids?

I sure don’t know.  I live on my own, I’m not married, I don’t have kids. 

Love to me was fighting to stay with someone and refusing to let go of them.  Love to me meant feeling complete (sometimes) with one person.   Love was having that one person who would hold you and make the sadness of the day disappear.   Love was making dinner; watching the news; and lying foot to foot on the couch, rubbing each other’s feet and talking about the day.

That is what I thought love was.  I was incapable of looking in the mirror by myself and feeling love.  If I didn’t have that perfect man  behind me in the reflection, I was loveless and miserable.  I was broken on my own and fighting every day to make the perfect relationship. 

I say WAS because I’m growing.  I was told that today by a very good friend of mine, someone I trust.  He said, “do you have any idea how much you are changing and growing?”  That made me feel….well, loved.  And I realized that lately I have been able to look in the mirror, on my own, and think, I’m okay, and I love myself.  Ok, that is half a lie….I am starting to love myself.

I would still like to be a little trimmer, more tanned, and more tantalizing, BUT I am who I am, or as I really like to say, “it is what it is.”  It is easy to love myself when I have a man who can’t keep his hands off me, but it is harder and more important to love myself when I am on my own.

How do I go about ensuring that I am in love, or falling in love, with myself?  I love without expecting love in return.  I give without waiting for something to come back.  I care before being cared about.  By giving away compassion, trust, and love, I am doing things to not only show the world around me love, but to also take out some insurance for myself, hoping against all odds that on my own, I am capable of love.

Dictionary.com has seven definitions for the word love.  Everything from deep affection to sex.  That makes me wonder, how often do I use the word love to cover up the feeling of lust.  How often do I base love, on the physical action of making love?  I look at my past and can surely say, I have done so.  I wonder, can I really say I have EVER made love, when I haven’t ever loved myself?  I answer no.

I have said, “I love you!!” so many times, but really, do I love, or am I just afraid to lose?