Reflections on Love

"I love you" is a statement that can be expressed in so many varied ways. It amy be a stage song, repeated daily without any meaning, or a barely audible whisper, full of surrender. Sometimes it means I desire you or I want you sexually. It may mean: I hope you love me or I hope that I will be able to love you. Often it means: It may be that a love relationship can develop between us. Often it is a wish for emotional exchange: I want your admiration in exchange for mine, or I give my love in exchange for some passion, or I want to feel cozy and at home with you, or I admire some of your qualities. A declaration of love is mostly a request: I desire you, or I want you to gratify me, or I want your protection or I want to be intimate with you, or I want to exploit your loveliness.

Sometimes it is the need for security and tenderness, for parental treatment. It may mean: My self-love goes out to you. But it may also express submissiveness: Please take me as I am, or I feel guilty, I want, through you, to fix the mistakes I've made in human relationships. It may be self-sacrifice and masochistic wish for dependency.

However, it may also be a full affirmation of the other, taking the responsibility for mutual exchange of feelings. It may be a weak feeling of friendliness, it may be scarecly even a whispered expression of ecstasy. "I love you" - wish, desire, submission, conquest; it is never the word itself that tells the real meaning of the simple phrase.

I don't know why I found that so fascinating. Probably because it's referring to the many different interpretations of a so-commonly spoken phrase. What does love mean? I suppose to me it means the full-trusting and desire to be with someone. The feeling and idea that no matter what happens, you'll be able to get through it as long as the person you love is with you. That that person makes you happy, they complete you. I'm not saying the person is perfect, by any means. Just that they're perfect for you. It means "I trust you not to hurt me, I trust you with my mind, my heart, my everything." It's long-lasting.

Have I ever said "I love you" without meaning it? I thought I had, but looking back at what I think "I love you" means, I realize I haven't. Not really, when the person realized I meant it, and not just in the cutsey "I'm saying I love you because I'm asking you for a favor" way. You can love your brother, you can love your husband, and - most importantly - you should love Christ by fully trusting.

I suppose there is no official definition for love. Dictionary.com lists the number of defintions for the word love at 28, but I think there are as many as there are people on the earth. I don't think it can really be defined, only expressed.

The issues comes, I suppose when two people exchange "I love you." Can you ever really know what the other person means? I thought I did, but now I realize that definitions for love are about as different - and plentiful - as a person fingerprints. They are formed by life experiences, needs, desires, purposes in life, mental state, anything and everything.

To live is to love right? What does love mean to you? Do you agree with my analysis or not? Is love even a verb, or an adjective?

I would appreciate answers to those questions, but if you don't want to, just think twice before you say I love you next time. I think everyone needs to figure out what love is to them before they should use it. I know I'm more determined to use it accurately, and not just as an off-the-cuff conversation filler, or an automatic because someone says it to you.

After all, "What's not to love?!"

I hope you all have a wonderful night!

-Jillian