Love is...

Love. Such a simple, pure word, if taken at first glance.

BUT

‘I love strawberries’

‘I love the football’

‘I love jazz’

‘I love a bit of stir’,

somehow don’t have the same meaning and significance as

‘I love my partner, I love my child, I love my friends and I love my dog.’

And even those, one might suggest, more meaningful uses of a word as overused as some others with only four letters, are often viewed hierarchically:

‘blood is thicker than water’

‘the seats at the front are reserved for family’

‘it was just a pet after all’, (this one not that far removed from the ‘never mind, better luck next time, next time when the time is right’, pladitude sometimes said when a baby leaves the womb to early to survive. Meant to reassure but much more likely to wound).

All these, and more, strongly suggest, even if not the intention, that some love, from some, towards some, is greater, and more legitimate, than other love from others, towards others.

‘Love means never having to say you are sorry.’

Really? Does it? For doesn’t this have the potential for ‘love’ to be used as an excuse for bad behaviour, sometimes really, really bad behaviour.

‘Love hurts’ … at times physically as well as emotionally.

Tragic. 

‘The price of love is often grief.’

Yes, I get this one; whether from love no longer given and received or the loss of a loved one through distance, illness, death.

‘All you need is love.’

Well partly for indeed a life without love is a life with less colour and warmth and money doesn’t buy happiness necessarily but along with love, food, shelter, security, peace all feel like life’s essentials to me. What about you?  

‘Love is a gift’

‘Love is the answer’

‘Love is like a red, red rose’

‘I never knew what was love was until….’

I’m sounding like a Hallmark card employee now.

‘Love is madness, love is ‘blind’ (I acknowledge the inappropriate language here).

Love. Such a simple, pure word, if taken at first glance.

But…..