L-O-V-E

Love. It must be the most defined, analyzed, thought upon topic in the world today and maybe rightly so. People swear it off, pray for it to come, and feel just about everything in between about it. No one is immune from its grasp, however, even in the most wall-building soul.

I want to say right up front that I'm not only speaking of the marry me and share my name, ride into the sunset on my white horse, and I was never complete until I met you dear kind of love (yes, you know who you are). At least not singularly. I'm speaking about the love shared between family members, close friends, and often people you've met only a short while ago. When I was in the hospital on one occasion, there was a little boy who occupied the room next to me. Of course, I didn't know what he had but could see it was serious. He was only probably about six years old and already had yellowed skin. And apparently he had been admitted for three months when I came into the hospital. Did I love this little boy? Yes, and not only because we shared a wall or similarly horrible hospital food, but because my heart went out to him just as if he were my own child or nephew or brother. And what else is that but love?

So love, we know what it is. And yet, perhaps the eternal question of life is why do we set ourselves up for it? Even in the relationships in families or between friends, love always brings about heartache and pain. Love is the sole reason for people becoming lonely. If there were never any love, they would never know compassion and the joy of sharing time with another individual. So why do we continue to seek after it, even if we pretend not to? Even if we build these pretentious walls around us to somehow protect what we are, we still want it and are ready to snap it up when it comes our way, sooner or later.

We can't live without it. It is the force that keeps people in tune. They say that when you exercise, the number of endorphins increases in your body, making you happy and clear-minded. When we interact with others and share our lives with them, I believe the exact same thing happens, only on a hundred-fold scale. This blog has little purpose more than to assure the world that loving others, even if it means being separated from them, is so vitally important. Without it we are lost. If we lose that human connection we all share, we have little hope left. I take that back. We have no hope left. No Hope...