The Epiphany of Love

I discovered last night what love really is.

Love is something which sometimes feels very hard to quantify, especially as one advances in years. Part of it, I suppose, is simply the fact that being with someone for so many years tends to dull the edge of what we grow up thinking love is: that bright, tingly feeling that makes every day bright, that makes every moment exciting, that makes the heart race every time one touches or sees or thinks of the beloved.

Another part is simply the confusion that our society has generated around love and sex. Simply put, for society love = sex. Our entertainment and literature glorifies it: love is physical involvement with someone else. If you're not - or not frequently anyway - you're not really in love.

The problem is neither of thing is love (as many others far wiser than I have written). If love is a thrill, then we will always be a people seeking new thrills and when that wears off, we will wander off in search of the next fix. If love is only sex, we will find ourselves constantly worried about if our physical life is enough, or if our partner will sudden turn on us, seeking the next experience.

What is love? The epiphany of love is that of a parent painstakingly care for their child, addressing every aspect of a condition that needs to be dealt with - not just the personal care, but the care of the ancillary items - and then doing it again, and again, as many times as necessary.

This example of service, of caring, of putting aside of one's own agenda for the sake of someone else, is one of the greatest examples of love I can think of.

Note that it is not even directed at the relationship between the parents. There are certainly no bright sparkly feelings, and no physical expression is exchanged. But this act conveys more about the underlying bedrock of what matters and what is important than the greatest Academy Award winning sex scene could ever do.

Physical manifestations change. More than likely, a sex life will as well. But caring and sacrifice as an act of love - perhaps the highest example of an act of love - is something which, I realized in a flash, is something so desirable and so understated it is often missed. And yet, the feelings and thoughts that underlay it are the very things so many people say they truly want.