Love

What is love? A chemical reaction that causes us to attract suitable mates to reproduce? Or a spiritual, and emotional state that makes us human beings? Is our love for our children just a genetic tie to make us look after them? Or are our children part of our very being, and to love them is what makes us real?

There are so many types of love, the word doesn't really encompass them all. One thing that always makes me wonder is the assumption of the ONE TRUE LOVE.

We are brought up on the ONE TRUE LOVE from the moment we are told stories. Nearly all the fairy tales tell us that we must look for, wait for the ONE TRUE LOVE, and if we don't we are somehow deficient.

But what does this believe in the ONE TRUE LOVE mean? It kinda makes sense to me if you look at it from a "christian" point of view. Of course you would only have ONE TRUE LOVE, because you have only ONE TRUE GOD. The OTL sets up a very neat and tidy paradigm, so we all can fit nicely into our prescribed boxes. We are taught to believe that we can only love one person and that must be our OTL.

But are we limited into loving just one person? Or do we actually just not look down that road less traveled, because, well, because we aren't allowed to? "Nice, well-behaved people" don't have those thoughts or do those things. Yet we all love more than one person in all other areas.

Once we have more than one child, our love isn't shared between the two. It just grows. We love family and friends, in different measure and perhaps with a different love, but it's still love. We don't ever run out of love. So why must we only ever love our OTL?

The OTL dynamic also means that any love before or afterwards is somehow made less, less important and meaningful. If a relationship ends, and another one starts, comparisons are made with the OTL, and usually it ends up with a denial that the previously relationship was the OTL, or that this current relationship will never "quite" come up to scratch.

Love isn't a commodity, it should be given and taken freely and with joy. Maybe one day, we will be able to see what really should be our ONE TRUE LOVE is ourselves, and that sharing love doesn't mean that someone else is going to get less of it.