"Love is a portion of the soul itself,and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise." Victor Hugo

So I was talking to a friend last night and a question they asked, "What is love anyway?", prompted this email, and I decided it would make a good blog post since I haven't updated in FOREVER, and love has been on my mind a lot lately due to the circumstances in my friends lives (but that is another story).

So here is Noel's definition of love. Before you roll your eyes I want you to know that this is not some romantic, girly fairytale version that I have bought into. There have been a few times when I thought I was in love, but it wasn't until I experienced this feeling that I realized what a fool I had been, because nothing else has ever come close to this feeling.

Love is very simple. It is when an individual magnifies every good thing in your life. Every thought, every feeling, just by being alive. It's not conditional on what they say, or do. Just them, as they are, living and breathing is sufficient to make you feel happier, stronger, more optimistic, more confident in yourself than you ever did without them in your life. Because you love them you want nothing more from them than the opportunity to devote all your time and energy into making sure that that individual is the happiest that they could possibly be. No strings attached. You want to give freely because when they are happy you are happy too. You would sacrifice anything and everything for that individual if necessary, but it wouldn't even feel like a sacrifice because you care so much about them.

This is the love that a parent has for their child, a true friend has for their friends, that God has for us, and that a healthy couple has in their marriage. Probably the most amazing thing about love, real love, in my opinion, is that it is a feeling independent of how the other person feels about you. You love that person when they do stupid things, when they hurt you, even when they hate you. It is the most vulnerable and yet the most liberating feeling in the world. Love is amazing. That is why it makes me sad to think that some people would settle for anything less than the real thing.

A different friend once asked me as I was struggling with the pain that comes from an unrequited love, "why would any one would ever want to fall in love if hurts this much?". To her, and to the rest of you who are afraid to fall- again, or perhaps even for the first time , I say because it is worth it. It is so much better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, because loving someone increases our capacity to feel every other emotion, not just the pain. Henry David Thoreau said "There is no remedy for love but to love more", and that is exactly what I intend to do.