What is Love?

I don’t feel it yet.

I know desire. It’s an old and dear friend of mine. It lured me into sex, into pleasure, and wanting. It tricked me into believing it was love. I was wrong. I hated desire for the illusion and destruction it brought. It destroyed much of life’s beauties for a while. And it still knocks on my door every once in a while.

I know control. A rather strict role he played in my life. He was sure to try and make everything follow a schedule. Everything had to happen as it pleased. It calmed me by making me believe I could and should direct all of my life. It did not just try to control my life, but also the lives of people close to me. And it too tricked me into believing it was love.

I know fear. A friend I hated but was always part of the parties anyways. It had many ways to disguise itself. One of its disguises was comfort. Making my belief that this was all I needed. It told me that I didn’t have to change and if I did that it was pleasant and comfortable. It manipulated me into believing it was love too.

Love had many forms in my life. But it was far from true love. It wore many faces, each in its own way distinct and destructive. But I want to know what love really is. If it isn’t desired, control, or fear what is it then? Are these things not love?

Hasn’t desire taught me that I cannot fill a feeling of emptiness.
Hasn’t control taught me that I can let go of the strings and enjoy what comes my way?
Hasn’t fear taught me that I am free to break from any belief I hold?

So aren’t these things actually part of love? Aren’t they good for us as long as we are empty vessels that do not reject, deny, or condemn anything? Shouldn’t we simply allow ourselves to be filled with whatever comes our way?

If our vessel wasn’t closed wouldn’t it mean everything was free to come and go? So maybe love isn’t what fills us, but the emptiness within us that is filled with joy, fear, kindness, anger, sadness, passion, and more.

What if love is the emptiness, the silence we all fear so much? Wouldn’t that explain why we fear it so much? Cause we have no control over it. It is free. It is raw and untamed and that is what frightens us.

But what if love is only the empty vessel for life to enter us? Wouldn’t it mean love is part of everything? Wouldn’t it mean life is love? And that means that everything we experience in life is one with love. It is what should happen. It is what it is. And it is beautiful.

Maybe that is true love and maybe I feel it for the first time in my life. It is free and filled with everything life can be. But it will never be filled, for the vessel must remain open. So that all parts of life may enter and rejoice as one. Maybe that is true love.