Blog from 9/07 - moved from Yahoo

Love - What Does It Mean?
A friend asked, "What would we do without the word love?" INDEED! What would we do?

This has been a minor peeve of mine for some time. And I am just as guilty of it as anyone else. We overuse the word and thereby cheapen it's meaning. Many cultures have multiple words to convey different types of love; to define the depth of feeling, whether it is personal or familial, spiritual or sexual. We use one word to cover a huge range of emotional feelings.

I love my job (You don't hear this one very often)
I love my boyfriend/girlfriend
I love carrots and peas
I love God

We are far too quick to tell someone we love them when we start a new, emotionally charged relationship. When in reality what we are feeling is euphoria brought on by a surge of hormones. We should be saying something like "I am really turned on by you, I enjoy your company, our conversations, and I really like being around you. But I don't know if I love you yet."

When the hormones slow down, when the relationship cools, when the conversation has turned into how your day at work went, if you can still say "love" and actually mean it then you are approaching the true meaning of the word. The true meaning should imply a sense of oneness. A feeling of being less complete without the other person. Perhaps we should reserve using the word love until we feel those types of feelings, and we would all hear much less of it.

I enjoy my job
I really like being with my new boyfriend/girlfriend
Carrots and peas are one of my favorite foods
I love God

Save it for when it really means something.

Climbing down from my soapbox.