What is love?

The question has been stretched from one corner of the universe to the other, as I imagine it will continue to be. There isn’t one solidifying answer that conquers all minds; there isn’t a word or a sentence or even a book that can provide a definite reply to every soul that dwells upon it. Some say love is growing old together; other say love is a phase; others still say love is watching someone die.

The question that isn’t asked frequently enough is what isn’t love. When thought on, there is hardly an action that doesn’t form from some emotion, and there isn’t an emotion that doesn’t string back to love.

Is love not meeting the expectations of a loved one, and them still loving you? Or is love knowing that you disappointed them, and reliving the moment over and over, trying to justify its righteousness and its wrong.

Is love letting go? Or is it holding on so tightly that you lose all feeling in your fingers, and your arms strain and your chest tightens but you know that nothing could make you lose your grip.

It’s been said that love is knowing a person inside and out, all their bad and all their good. Or that it is kneeling down on one knee and offering up all of your life, you future, your heart, to another person. That love is remembering every detail about a person, and adoring that you remember.

While all of these things are true at least in half, I think the main point of love, what it is and what it can be, has been lost. Love is a mother making the choice between adoption and keeping the baby. Love is stealing money for your family so that they might be able to eat that night. Love is pushing yourself back, and others forward, simply because you know that if you didn’t you would always regret it.

Love isn’t buying lavish gifts. It isn’t acting out of it, or even acting for it. It isn’t letting go, but it mightn’t be holding on, either.

Love, though practically indescribable, is waking up day after day in hope and wander of a life worth living. Love is watching the tears fall down and finding no judgment in them. Love is laughing at yourself, crying for yourself, and hurting because of yourself. It is in each blade of grass, in each scolding finger, in each squinting eye and in every mourning heart.

Love isn’t answering its question, or even pretending to. Love is still seeking for that answer, minute after minute, year after year, even when knowing that in all your depth you will never truly know.