So What Do You Really Mean When You Say You Love Someone?

Is love really a once in a lifetime thing? What, exactly, do you mean when you say you love someone? And is it possible to love more than one person?

I have always wondered what the actual meaning of ‘love’ is. Yesterday in our school whatsapp group, there was a discussion on, “I wonder how you can fall in love only once!”

I agree you cannot fall in love only once. If I could say, I probably fall in love everyday. And when I do so, I really feel good and sleep well.

Second attribute is ‘attraction’. This includes all physical features, like eyes, nose, hair, height, colour of skin, gait etc etc. Going a level deeper, this could also include qualities that you yourself don’t possess and have always aspired to have. This usually falls under the head of ‘talents’. A talented person is usually liked and loved by a lot more people.

There are according to me some negative aspects also that lead you to the ‘love’ feeling. Loneliness – being bored from your routine, lack of hobbies and not having regular healthy human interactions could make one feel the want of ‘love’ in ones life. Continuing on those lines, lack of sex life, may also lead you to the want of a loved one.

But not all of love is about attraction

Any of the above attributes, either by itself or in solidarity cannot be called love! For the simple reason that, so many other ‘loves’, (like the mother- daughter, brother -sister, best friends) wouldn’t make sense then. The definition of love has to be universal to take in all types of relations and passion and yet make sense to a 6 year old, 16 year old and also a 60 year old.

My objective as mentioned above, is pretty simple; When in love, I need to sleep well: no worries, no ifs and buts! In the process of raising an 8 year old daughter, I have come up with this hypothesis: Love is understanding and acceptance.

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Both mighty words, with a lot of strength and weight attached.

Understanding according to me is the first big step. Once you get on there, a lot of negatives and reality gets thrown at you. Sometimes you just stop there and realise, how wrong things are. The foot doesn’t raise to the next step at all. Fear, rules, society, expectations can all act as hindrances to go to the next step.

However like the birds that take flight, with openness and space one probably could go one to the next step. Like getting over the comfort zone, is a revelation; so is also taking this mighty step. When you move from the comfort to the uncomfortable and accept to learn something from it, a magic just happens!

My hypothesis, I believe  holds true for any kind of love : human-human, human-nature. human-art, human-sport, human-books, so on and so forth. So yeah, according to this, I fall in love everyday- with a new piece of music, a new dance step, a new thought, a creative piece of literature I read.

As regards falling in love with humans, I am happy falling in love with my loved ones again and again- understanding and accepting in them something new, everyday!!!!

Love…

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Published here earlier.

Image source: bluediamondgallery

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