Yesterday as I dragged my feet back to the kitchen carrying a tray laden with left overs from a wedding celebration, my mind could not rest. It mulled incessantly over the meaning of love. What is this ambiguous feeling that we all desperately search for in the hopes that one day it will appear in our lives? Why is it so important? And do we really need to search for it? If it is, in fact, so great surely it is right here all around us all the time?

 As always my first place to search for answers was Google and according to Merriem Webster:

1

love

play

noun \ˈləv\

The Simple Definition of love is:

• : a feeling of strong or constant affection for a person

• : attraction that includes sexual desire : the strong affection felt by people who have a romantic relationship

• : a person you love in a romantic way

Now it’s not often that Google disappoints me but for some reason (even though it is a rather intriguing definition) this definition simply does not satisfy my burning questions. It still seems so vague. And so I started my research for as always my mind would not except a less than perfect answer. Reaching out to the sights, scenes and people around me, I slowly began to develop my own definition of love.

Love was that mythical fairy dust. The kind that makes bad-ass bikers into sappy teddy bear buying boyfriends and renders a mother speechless when her baby takes the first breath of air. It’s the potent glitter that leaves a stunning glow on the highlights of a year spent with special people or in a place your soul felt at home.

Love is the drug that we administer in small doses but slowly crave more and more until we can’t go a day without whispering I Love You to the special people in your life just in case they forgot. Is it not with love in their hearts that cousins drag a cooler box and picnic basket across the burning sea sand to sit together and laugh over a good meal? It is love that has one waking up to check on a crying child or spouse and it is this mystical feeling that draws lovers out into the early hours of the morning still laughing and talking as though no time had passed from the time they first laid eyes on each other the night before.

This apparent unicorn of the feelings kingdom is the supposedly elusive almost extinct or non-existent feeling that brings two best friends together to plot the socially acceptable text message massacre of a now common foe. And it is this cloud of cotton candy that has one remembering that your best friend has a signature scent that smells better than even Chanel No. 5 .

Let’s not forget the number of times love is blamed for the crazy places and lengths you’d go to be with those you love. We’d uproot our whole family and move across the country to be together because deep down we know that we won’t survive the pain of being apart.  We innately know that love would not allow us to leave our favorite part of each day behind.

And let’s be honest, you don’t for one second regret it…do you? As long as the love is blissfully festering and bubbling over you will never for one second stop to think “Dear lord, what have I done?”

No.

As long as the love is in our heart we can do superhuman, crazy, over the top and humanely impossible feats without blinking an eye lid. So why then are we so convinced by the media that true love is a specific way. A girl and a boy sleeping together or constantly making out? Why do we believe that love is always happy when it is with love that you would cry beside the grave of a lost one or agonizingly support a loved one as they rebuild their life.

Love is no where near the superficial TV version of sappy teens and expensive dates. Love is how sweet victory feels when you look at the stands and see your mom’s face streaming with tears of pride. It’s knowing you’re safe and at home no matter what the circumstances are or where in the world you are.

Love is realities way of reminding us that the fairy tales were more than just stories from far far away. So with that in mind I’ve decided that this feeling is something no one can define for anyone else.

For me, love is the cupcake from the Nedbank advert. It’s the little fairies moon-walking their way through my life.

Leaving you to define it for yourself,