Love

I feel love for just about everything in my life right now. A favorite exclamation of mine is, “I love it!” and I mean it every time. But I don’t think I understood the importance of love before this year. Now, obviously, I had been taught that love is the most powerful thing in the world (and true love’s kiss – Maleficent anyone?). I like how I say ‘obviously’, as if I’m so casual about the power of love. Oh gosh, the power of love. I sound so cliché. NEXT PARAGRAPH.

Let me begin again…when I say begin again, it makes me think of Taylor Swift’s song Begin Again, awwwwww, in a little café in Paris, what a dream. So there are lots of songs about love. I don’t really feel like discussing this type of love, not because I haven’t felt it, but because it is so very talked about and what more could I really add to the conversation? Have I been in love? Maybe. No, yes. (Maybe no yes hahahaha this is the classic indecision with which I conduct most of my life. It’s really working out). Yes, I have been in love, because I’ve decided to define love as wanting to make another person feel supported in their world, wanting to be allowed into it to see if you can inspire it. Pretty simple, pretty human. Try to find my definition in the dictionary and you won’t, but each person stumbles upon what certain concepts mean for them. And that’s all she wrote (hey, this phrase will apply whenever I write anything ever, excellent) about romantic love.

 

I see so many people rushing around, or making hasty decisions, or living according to what they think they should be doing and getting frustrated that it’s not working, or finding everything works so well for them that any inconvenience or delay in traffic is unacceptable and maddening. A lot of this wouldn’t happen if people would just slow down. And here’s where I think love is critical in everyday life. The concept of love has that abstract and mysterious nature; it’s a wave you that you can’t pin down, it’s a problem like Maria. Because love makes us do the opposite of what we’re told to do. Life lessons: Go faster, get richer, be better, do more. Opposites: take it slow, indulge yourself, I accept you, just be still. When love is felt, the opposite becomes normal. There is room to breathe, room to think, room to stop racing because you’ve already got what you want.

I specifically pointed out that I have stopped talking about romantic love. That’s because Great Love is so abundant that it can affect everyone’s life, whether they’ve found that elusive other half or not. Feeling like you want to linger in a loving feeling, or stay with someone you love, can be broadly applied to seemingly ordinary encounters. On the beach the other night, a small girl was playing in the sand. As I walked by her she stood up, dropped her sand, and gave me a wave and a smile that filled her entire tiny face. She quickly stopped, then I waved back. We went through this cycle about five times, me craning my head over my shoulder as I passed so I could keep waving at this wonderful little creature. I completely forgot whatever I had been preoccupied with prior to this encounter. My whole body felt like it had been jolted awake, picked up, and stretched out. I loved it.

What I am talking about here is nothing amazing. I think people build up the idea of love so much in their minds that they miss small and very important moments of love like the one I found on the beach. If love is savoring the numerous rich pleasures of life, being a part of this world as much as you’re able to be a part of your significant other’s world, inspiring others when they need it most (and I think we always need it most), then let’s give more of it. If madness is dwelling and groaning about the inevitable hassles of various sizes that we all must slug our way through in order to keep on living, then let’s have less of it.

This year taught me to take in the love, and send out the madness. It’s the only way to get what you want.