Defining love
“Whenever anyone asked me to get into a relationship with them, I always asked myself, would this person ever love me like my mom does? In one way or another, they always came short, and it was never their fault….”
I had never considered myself to have been in love at any point in my life because my definition of love seemed to be different than everyone else’s. To me, love was my mom. Simple, uncomplicated, and true. You see, my mother is a single mother who gave up the most important parts of her life to take care of her children when all the odds were against her. My first definition of love was her. One quiet night while we were eating supper, we heard a very loud explosive sound from outside. The explosion was followed by loud crackles and hisses and seemed to come from nearby.
My mom, sister, and I were in the house alone and our neighbors had long gone to bed so when we heard the loud explosion, we all froze and looked at each other in terror. We had a big table in our house where we placed our reed-woven “laundry baskets” and under that table, there was always so much space. In the minutes that followed the initial explosion, my mom roughly shoved my sister and me into the space under the table and then brought her suitcase to cover the gap. She told us to keep quiet and warned us against coming out of hiding till she came back to remove the suitcase. Back then, of course, the two of us could fit under a table. We uncomfortably squatted under the table and did not see anything else after that. Looking back now, I do not think my mom had anywhere else to hide. The spot we were in was the only hiding spot an adult could fit in. After what seemed like ages, the explosions stopped, and everything was quiet. My mom did not immediately come back to move the suitcase, so we stayed where we were for probably more than 30 minutes. She later came back, got us out, and assured us that everything was okay.
I could tell that she was scared but she was trying to hide it from us. The same night when everything had quieted down, our neighbors came over and told us that the explosive noise we had heard was fireworks! To give you a little bit of context, we lived near an events garden that hosted weddings and other events. That night, a soldier was getting married so they had fireworks to celebrate. We had never seen or heard fireworks. Yes, that was our first encounter with fireworks!
With those kinds of experiences, my definition of love was based on how my mother expressed it. It became very difficult for someone to convince me that they loved me. Love to me was about sacrifice, freedom, generosity, unfailing support, kindness, friendship, loyalty, and unconditional acceptance. Whenever anyone asked me to get into a relationship with them, I always asked myself, would this person ever love me like my mom does? In one way or another, they always came short, and it was never their fault.
The first time my boyfriend told me that he liked me and wanted to be more than just friends, I asked him what he meant. Of course, I knew what he meant but I needed a clearer explanation. Why would you say you want to get to know me better and spend time with me? We were already good friends and were already spending a lot of time together. I did not see my definition of love in our friendship. He was an amazing person to spend time with, he made me laugh, was a good conversationalist, and he was very intelligent. I could challenge him with all manners of passionate arguments, and he would oppose me right back. He seemed like a good friend and that was all there was to it. He was so different from what I associated with love. After a very funny and detailed discussion, which is a story for another day, we decided to give a relationship a try (Best decision I made that year!)
From this relationship, I have learned an entirely different definition of love. Love is wanting to spend every minute with the other person but not wanting them close to you when you are angry. Love is kind but at times very firm. Love is the sacrifice of time, self-interests, and sometimes giving without expecting. Love is constantly forgiving each other. Love is the passion for one another. Love is smiling at the thought of the other person and daydreaming about the memories you have created when you know that you should be working in the day. Love is patience when the person is oblivious to the wrongs they have done. Love is just everything and all the small things. I can now confidently say that I have experienced a different kind of love and it is beautiful. My initial definition of love has not changed, it has just expanded because I now associate love with different things.
Love is not one thing. It is a complex emotion. Everyone’s definition is different based on their life experiences, their attitude, connections, and the way they perceive the world. When you know that love is many things, you start to look for it in everything. You start anticipating it and hoping that you find it in all you do. That is why we look for it in other people, in things, places, and moments.
The first thing that came to mind this Valentine’s Day was the different types of love I have experienced so far so I decided to share my experience. By the way, whenever I see fireworks, it reminds me of my mother, and it brings up such beautiful memories. I am well conversant with fireworks now and whenever I remind her about the fireworks, we laugh so hard. This Valentine’s Day think of all the different kinds of love there are in your life and celebrate every one of them. Do not limit your celebration and acknowledgment of love.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
