"What is love...really?"

"It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves."
William Shakespeare 

I took a drive around the old neighborhood today.  Curiosity got the best of me I suppose and as I was driving around I started thinking about all of the times I'd have fallen in love.  I fell in love with the boy who lived across the road.  We went to elementary school together.  He loved playing outside and we loved riding the bus together.  I was in love.  His family moved. I got a few letters and then they stopped.  I was five. Decades later, love means something entirely different.  What is love really...?

Love is:

• giving up control of the TV remote or even more important, giving up control of old routines.
• picking up dirty underwear and smelly socks off of the bathroom floor.
• brushing your teeth before you kiss.
• putting on makeup during the weekend.
• having someone hold your head when you have the stomach flu.  
• having your feet rubbed when you've worn the wrong shoes all day just to look fashionable or...taller.
•  sharing the last of the ice cream, whatever flavor.
• flossing.
• doing something about your snoring...yes, I said snoring.
• taking turns doing the laundry.  Folding is always appreciated.
• eating burgers on the deck...with extra cheese and toasted bun because well, you like it that way...and watching the sun set.  Actually, any sun set, at any time...
• putting the heat up...past 65 degrees.
• kissing the one you love as you leave for work in the morning.
• kissing the one you love when you walk through the door at the end of day.
• feeling safe enough to disagree...and disagree...and disagree some more.
• biting your lip even when you'd like to chew off someone's...
• belly laughing at Saturday Night Live, Bill Maher or John Stewart.
• admitting when you're wrong and sticking to your guns when you're right.
• realizing that there are boundaries.
• moving in with the love of your life with 100 pairs of shows and your soon to be fiance crying because he has NO idea where to put them.
• being comfortable enough to cry in front of each other.
• Eloping to Jamaica and getting married on the beach.  Hey, when you're over 40, you realize life is short...too short...love is love.
• letting someone else eat the last of the left over pizza.  
• picking up dirty socks and underwear...still.
• finding fresh flowers in your office just because.
• being able to watch the Oscars, the Tonys and "Behind the Candelabra" without interruption.  My husband will never look at Matt Damon the same.  I thought his little g-string was awesome.
• coming home to the most delicious home cooked meal after the most horrendous of days.
• helping those who can't help themselves and asking nothing in return.
• being passionate about something so much even when you know it's hard or the risk of failure is possible.  Anything worth passion is difficult. 
• patience.  LOTS, and LOTS of patience and the ability to lose yours if need be.

I remember that last time I said "I love you."  I was sitting on the counter of my future husband's home.  We were seriously dating for about a year.  King was cooking a lovely dinner and I was sitting on the counter drinking a glass of wine.  All of sudden, I just started to well up in tears, and I could hardly breathe...He said, "What? What's the matter?"  That was my cue.  "I...I...love you John."  As I started to cry, he came over to me, and said, "I love you too."  BINGO! Finally, the risks I had taken worked because, all along I knew I had been right.  I felt safe, vulnerable and petrified all at the same time and it felt wonderful.  All of the past melted into my future because of honesty and because of courage.

Gratitude is the one thing that has saved me.  As I licked my wounds and suffered through the hurt of all the loves come and gone, I realized that all roads led to me.   I had always been in control of my actions. I just didn't know it.  It never matters who says, "I love you." What matters is that someone does. We simply can't say it or show it enough. The other day one of my students came up to me and said, "I love you Mrs. King."  I replied, "Yeah, yeah, now catch the bus so you can go home and do your English project...HA!"  As I drove home from school, my heart grew three times its size.  That folks, is what we call maturity.  That folks, is what we call "love."