Matters of the Heart

In honor of St. Valentine's Day, I decided to write about that little four-letter word, which strikes fear in the hearts of some, joy in the hearts of others.

Love.

Can anyone really define love? I suppose there are as many definitions as there are people in the world. There's romantic love, mushy love, lusty love, emotional love, secure love, family love, friendly love, and all other kinds of love.

I spent a lot of time in my teens and early twenties thinking that love was an emotion, an all-encompassing feeling that brought two people together in a relationship. When I first met my now-husband, I began to realize that, at least for me, love is less of an emotion, and more of an attitude. It's an attitude with a corresponding behavior or action. That is, "I care about you and would like to do something for you to express my feelings." That attitude/action may have an impact on my or someone else's emotions, but it's not a stand-alone emotion.

As I left my early and mid-twenties behind, my thoughts on love and the types of love changed again. With a husband and a new baby, I learned what it really means to love someone unconditionally...to love just because, and not have any conditions attached to it. None of that, "I will love you if [whatever]."

For reasons too numerous and complicated to get into here, my personal definition of relationship love has continued to evolve. As I struggled through difficult times, I turned to my faith for the support I needed and to my surprise, found some comfort in the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have done unto you. You know, treat others as you wish to be treated.

I think a lot of men and women speak different languages when it comes to love, but the Golden Rule helps to clarify it a little. I leave my husband little notes and cards and gifts in his car, around the house, in his work bag, because to me, that is an expression of my love. However, on the inside, I'm wishing he would do the same little things. Sometimes I catch myself thinking, "He never does anything romantic like that. Why do I bother?"

But you know what? He...shovels snow. And maybe, just maybe, he's thinking, "If she didn't spend so much damn time writing me stupid little notes, she could help out with the shoveling, and we'd have some extra time together!"

So, we're both doing for each other what we wish the other would do for us. I struck up a conversation about this with him recently, and we both gained some insight. We both want little things. It's just different little things.

Maybe the Golden Rule needs to go a little further and state that we don't just need to treat others the way we wish to be treated. We need to treat others the way they wish to be treated, too.