What is love

Young people know all about love. They know that if you just love and love and love it cures anything and everything. It's all about persistence and "real love."

And then reality strikes.

After some experience we ask ourselves, "What is love?"

Is it being loved, or loving? Is it forever? Is it doing the hard thing, the right thing for the beloved? Is it limited? Can it end?

And the answer is, "Yes."

It is ego reaching out. Replicating itself. Searching for itself. It is the infant still reaching for it's mother's nurturing when her lap is long gone. It is passion and lust, caring and need, the best and the worst all lumped together under an umbrella called love.

In it's purest form I believe it is what a new parent feels upon meeting its child.

After that it mimics all else in nature from the ivy that strangles the plant that carries it, to the guppy who devours her own young, and the spider who eats her mate. It is the Robin raising the cuckoo as her own, the sun warming the tiny seeds in the earth, an eagle teaching its young to fly. It is a friend holding you while you cry and your enemy's understanding.

It is so deeply felt it is often painful and yet we seek it out like a drowning child does air.

Love is personal and unique and no one else can really define it for you.