THEN THERE IS LOVE.

                                                

As we go through life we experience a lot of emotions. They impact us in a variety of ways including how we act, what we say and how we feel about others. These emotions seem to run the gauntlet from hate and suspicion to laughter, sadness, love and so many more. Most of them we need to control, and some of them we could well do without if only we could—but always we need to deal with them. Most of them involve other people, and then others are just ours alone to deal with. I could write a book about all of them, and how they have impacted my life, but for right now, I want to talk about the one I think is the most important to all of us, and that is love.

It has been said that there is no real darkness—just the absence of light. Using that analogy I would say this. There is no hatefulness or loneliness in our lives, just the absence of love. Love may be gone from your life for many reasons. Some of us have never sought it. Some of us have experienced it and lost it through faults of our own, and some of us lost it because it was taken from us. Love is an essential emotion that needs to be cultured and taken care of from the time it is a tiny seed. It can’t exist without some form of cooperation from you. You give it and you will get it back.

In the lyrics to the song “The Rose,” Amanda McBroom wrote about what it’s like to live with or without love. “Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless aching need. I say love, it is a flower and you its only seed.” How many people have you known that refuse to give himself or herself to anyone? How many people have you known that can’t stand the thought of losing something or someone and for that reason they rob themselves of all the benefits of love. Love doesn’t make the world go around, that’s just a clique—but it does make the ride much more enjoyable.

The word love has been abused over the years. So many times I have heard the phrase “Make Love.” You don’t make love but you do make love happen, and more times than not it doesn’t involve anything physical. Writers are always looking for synonyms or other ways to say things. They don’t like to repeat themselves. Love, as strong as an emotion as it is, has very few synonyms. Fondness comes to mind, and maybe affection, but most people just prefer good old love. Everything else seems to smack of Hollywood’s version of love, which all too often is mostly smut.

Love is the rhythm on the dance floor of life. It’s no fun to dance alone and it’s hard to live alone, and for that reason, life and your feelings are meant to be shared. You can ignore love, but you shouldn’t. You can always close your eyes to things you don’t want to see, but you can’t close your heart to things you don’t want to feel. You have to deal with them. I speak from experience when I say, “love is like a puzzle.” When you’re in love all the pieces fit so perfectly, and the picture makes so much sense, but when your heart gets broken the pieces are meaningless, all in a mess. But if you’re careful and don’t lose any of the pieces, they will all come together again when love comes back. If you let it, it always will. “Far beneath the bitter snows, lies the seed that with the sun’s love, in the spring becomes the rose.”