love

We're all so quick to define what it is that we don't love: "I hate spinach." "I can't stand it when you do that." "I would prefer the yellow one, please." But in love? We're silent. Partly because days like today have taken the concept to a grandiose level, have elevated the word "love" to mean something we think is - or should be - unattainable. And it's not.

I love Adoring and Wonderful Husband. I love my baby. (Though that doesn't mean I love waking up to a diaper so poopy from a meal of beans the night before. Um, yeah. Won't be feeding him those again.) And I love my family, and my friends, and myself. I love writing, and I love reading, and I especially love those things when the subject matter is me.

I loved Dead Tooth, until he came in for the kiss.

I love the movie Goodfellas. (The Departed seems like just a cheap knock-off, but worth the five bucks, nonetheless.)

And I know I will love the Chocolate Dipped Strawberries Blizzard Adoring and Wonderful Husband is bringing home right now, so we can watch 'Til Debt Do Us Part on the Life Network later, and gush about how well we're doing compared to those sorry suckers.

We, ourselves, should be the ones to define love. So that we're not scared of it. Love is a continuum. It ranges from a trite love of chick peas, to the profound sense of partnership that you find with the person you share signatures with on a legal document in City Hall. The only way to find the land where we tell each other we love each other each and everyday, and not once in a cold and snowy minute in the middle of the winter, is to learn how long your continuum is. Someday you'll find your end*, and that person there will be your truest Valentine.

(*Yes. I am aware that there is no theoretical end to a continuum, but there is in this life, okay?)