I mean, wars are fought and lives lost, walls are punched and restraining orders issued ... all in the name of love.

I don't understand.

I think people are in love with being in love. We think that love is that feeling you get when you first see her across the crowded room ... and you can't stop staring. When the smell of her perfume falls just short of rapture. When his touch sends to you heaven and his kiss keeps you from coming back.

But I don't believe that's love.

Maybe herein lies the confusion.

When I was sixteen, I lived with a family that didn't particularly care for me. They didn't dislike me at all ... they just didn't care for me. I was, I guess, nuetral to them. A shade of grey. Anyway, I was living in the basement at the time. Every night, I would fall asleep on top of a book. From the time I was a kid, I have fallen asleep reading. My mom would always come in, slowly slip my book out from under me and turn off my light. Hadn't really thought that much about it at the time. However, after my mother died, I realized how often she had done that because, from that time on, I always woke up with a book under me. And a sore neck.

Anyway, so this one night, like always, I fell asleep reading. Suddenly, I felt someone take off my glasses. At first, this scared me. I was living in the basement by myself and we all know my theory about basement (especially young girls alone in dark basements). So, understandably, I was a tad frightened. But then I felt my book being pulled out from under me .. and I realized this person was tucking me in for the night. Sleepily, I asked what time it was. She said "3:30 in the morning" and then turned off my light. The next morning, I made a point to go upstairs and thank the mother for what she had done for me the night before. For the first time in a really long time, I had felt loved. It's weird that such a little gesture could have so much meaning. Could have such an impact on me.

Anyway, she said that she didn't do it. She hadn't been downstairs at all last night.

I shivered all over. It was a Jonathon Edwards-ish moment for me. Not just for my potential face time with the other world, but because I knew what it was really like to be loved. And what is was like to have that love taken away.

It's interesting how one moment can change your entire perspective on the world.

So when I look around me and I see people who act crazy because they are "in love" ... I say "Wait". This isn't love. Lust, maybe. But not love.

It's not love that commands to you to profess your undying devotion to someone after you've know them for three days. Love wouldn't make you threatened to throw yourself off a bridge if he doesn't take you back. Love doesn't drive you to drink. A man doesn't hit a woman because he loves her. A woman doesn't cheat on her man because she loves him.

We've gotten it all wrong.

Love is a gentle, quiet emotion that's subtle and strong. It doesn't need rooms brimming with roses or thousands of ornate fireworks to prove it's there. (Although it doesn't hurt :) Love is bringing her chicken soup when she is sick, looking at those blood-shot eyes and bed-hed hair and telling her that's she's beautiful. And really meaning it.

Love is knowing that, when you call him, he'll be there. No questions ask. Not because he's submissive or henpecked ... but because you need him.

Love is the glue that holds our lives together. I know this because, when everything else is taken away, you realize that love is what gets us through the day. Expensive jewerly doesn't help us weather the storm. Lavish cars or hilltop mansions don't hold us up during the rough patches. No amount of fake friends, fake fur, or fake boobs will pick you up when the rest of the world has thrown you away. It's love. It's like oxygen. Better yet, it's like chocolate. You can't really live with out it .. and, even if you could, why would you want to?

I don't really think love makes us crazy. I think *we* make us crazy. Love got a bad rap. It became a scapegoat for human weakness.

Yeah, maybe it's trite. Maybe it's cliche. But well-worn sayings are well-worn for a reason: they need repeating. All you need is love. Real love. Not the Days-of-Our-Lives melodrama the media passes off as love.

Well, maybe love and pumpkin pie. I seriously think that I need pumpkin pie in order to retain normal mental functioning. I think I may have a problem. Who knew the addictive potential of pie?

Kids, stay off pastries. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Hmmm ... maybe love doesn't make us crazy ... maybe pumpkin pie does! That would make a lot of sense. Is it a coincidence that right around the same time pumpkin pie comes into season, everyone dresses up in ridiculous costumes to hide our identity for the express purpose of knocking on strangers door and begging, under the threat of violence, for sugar?

Seems like addictive behavior to me.

We're not love junkies. We're pumpkin pie junkies.

See, now. That explains everything.

last - next