A short essay on love

Love is a small word with big meaning. How can one word describe so many emotions?

Some words carry a certain type of ambiguity when it comes to their meaning. There is a certain amount of vagueness that comes along with words such as mad, pretty, smart, good and so on, but there is one ambiguous word that is often left out of the mix: love.

Love is used to describe so many strong positive emotions, but how can we use the same word to describe what we feel for a parent, a sibling, a friend and a spouse? What about your favourite dessert? A great show? A good joke? Love is all-encompassing because it’s the only word we use as a descriptor.

I have experienced many different forms of love in my life. I love my family. I love my husband. I love my cats. I love my friends. I love going on an adventure. I love cooking (sometimes). I love puppies. I love reading.

Do you see the problem?

I actually see two: the first is that I am using the same word to describe many different abstract emotions. The second is that, in many of these cases, I cannot seem to find a better word to describe this extreme emotion.

First, take familial love. This is the first love almost all of us know. It is support, comfort, protection and affection. It is mom kissing my scraped knee. It is dad teaching me about nature. It is time in grandma’s kitchen. Sometimes, it was tough love. It is my parents buying me my first flute. It is my brother checking on me when I was sick. It is pride in my brother’s first goal. It is fierce protectiveness. It is a love you are born into.

Romantic love, while it still has a lot of the same markers, is experienced in a completely different way. Romantic love is that bursting feeling when you spend time together. It is knowing you could be elsewhere but never wanting to leave. It is supporting ridiculous endeavours and holding one another’s hands if they don’t work. It is cuddling and building and caring. It makes you laugh and cry. It is intense. It is a love you choose.

Pet ownership is love. The fierce protectiveness you feel of your adoptive “family” members. The comfort of their presence after a long day of work is completely unique. You laugh at their antics and worry when they’re sick. You pay their vet bills, feed them and keep them comfortable. You are sad when they’re not there. You miss them. Again, this is love.

I love adventure. Whether it be the adventure of disappearing into a good book, trying a new recipe or the adventure of going somewhere new, it is a form of love. The excitement and uncertainty bring joy. Sharing it with others brings enjoyment. You are stepping into the unknown. The intensity of all of this is hard to explain, so we use the word that works best: love.

I normally rail against using the same descriptor for everything. I see it as lazy writing and feel we should strive to do better.

Love is, as always, the exception.

Love is the word we use when all others fail. We use it to describe the indescribable. When our big, happy emotions overwhelm us and we have nowhere else to turn, we turn to the only word that could possibly start to contain it.

Love.

Author's Note

Any constructive comments/criticism is appreciated. Tell me what works and what doesn't!