v - Day 05 – Your definition of love, in great detail

y definition of love?  These topics aren't getting any easier.  I've never really thought about love, so finding the words to describe how I feel about it is a bit of a daunting task.

First, let me start by describing what my definition of love is not.  It's not tumultuous in that Romeo and Juliet sort of way, you know, the Hollywood notion that being in love robs one of all sense.  It's always struck me as odd that the typical storybook lovers become so devoid of reason that they cease being able to operate in the world.  After all, you can't have a great love story without some terrible tragedy as a counterpoint, and how often are the lovers themselves the catalysts for their own downfall?

I once read a quotation to the effect that truly happy people didn't experience extremes of emotion, either good or bad.  The gist of it being that balance was true happiness and that suffering bouts of misery or ecstasy pointed to an imbalance.  I think I kind of feel that way about love.

Don't get me wrong, I fell completely and totally head-over-heels in love with my wife and spent a good while in the "holy cow, this is the awesomest thing ever" zone.  Ask anyone who got to hang out with us for the first couple years of our relationship.  It's like I was on to this really big notion.  This really, very phenomenally big notion, and for a while I was pretty happy just letting myself orbit in its gravitational pull.

At my grandmother's wake, I met an acquaintance of hers for the first time.  This woman, who had only ever heard my grandmother talk about me and my sister was moved to tears the moment she met us and that was my first hint at the sheer enormity of a human being's capacity for love.  My grandmother's love for her grandkids was such a monumental force in her life that it - even if only momentarily - was able to alter the trajectory of others' lives even after she was gone.

Though there are obvious differences between romantic love and platonic love, they both share a common trait of generosity.  There's also an element of self-improvement, what Hallmark would label "wanting to be a better person", that's undeniable.  Love requires us to give wholly of ourselves, but is revitalizing, energizing, and empowering in return.

I'm fortunate to share an incredibly deep love with my wife that encompasses all of that and more.  I think romantic love, apart from the obvious differences it has from platonic love, is the same, only bigger.  There are times where it's obvious she knows me better than I know myself, or from her vantage point she's able to ignore the self-eclipsing that happens when one is too emotionally invested to be able to take a step back from a situation and help steer me in the right direction.  I'm not the easiest book to read, but she knows me better than anyone else does.

So, I guess in short, my definition of love is what I have with my wife.  Finding her (and convincing her to stick around) is the one thing I'm most proud of, because in all honesty, no one has a right to expect this kind of thing to happen.  Not only is it what I want, more importantly it always turns out to be what I need.