How have your ideas and experiences of love evolved over your lifetime?

As a child I loved making homemade valentines for my 30 classmates. Each consisted of a white paper doily with a red construction paper heart on top, then a magazine cutout of roses or other pretty flowers glued right to the center of the heart.

It was a formulaic design, but I had to crank 30 of them. Hence the mass production set up at my dining room table. On the back I’d write to- from-, maybe even add some pencil drawn hearts or flowers. I felt an excitement in my heart, anticipation of making my friends smile. I wanted to please them and make them happy. My own heart would be happy as I folded the paper, cut the hearts and glued all the layers together. The day of our valentine’s party, I felt excited while placing them in each students’ red white and pink decorated mailboxes lined up on the long windowsill.

How would each class-mate would react? Would they like my valentine? Would they like me just as I liked them? Would they show how much they liked me by giving me the prettiest card, extra candy, gum, or a sweet note?

Of course in 5^{th and 6th} grades, I started wanting to give extra special hearts to certain boys, with the expectation of receiving one in return. The drama was pretty intense waiting for the big reveal, the opening of the stuffed mail boxes and then going through each of the little envelopes from the store bought cards, some with little candy message hearts or a stick of gum.

I have fond memories of those days, when life and love seemed easy, with only a little drama. Now many years have passed and my definition of love has evolved beyond the childlike simplicity of red paper hearts, into something much deeper.

That excitement I felt on Valentine’s day was just the beginning: a dipping of my big toe into the ocean of life and love. I didn’t know at age 11 that a lifelong journey of discovery was just beginning for me and all my friends. Now almost 60 years later, I can look back and see how my ideas about love have evolved over the decades.

Then we believed –

Your boyfriend or girlfriend completes you.

The other person will fill your voids and meet all your needs.

Love is an attraction to a person’s physical attributes and personality.

Your worth depends on having a boy (or girl) friend.

Now we know –

You are whole and complete in yourself.

You fill yourself up first by loving and accepting yourself and meeting your own needs.

Love is an appreciation, an opening yourself to the other person’s energy, their inner being, their essence, their spirit.

Your worth is a given, from birth.

Now I know that love is the the flow of life and creativity through us. It is accepting yourself and those you choose to love, flaws and all. It is respecting yourself enough to follow your heart and say yes to life. Love is standing in your light, seeing and appreciating the light in others.

Love does not seek to control others, judge them harshly, or one-up them. Love means begin honest about your own needs and feelings and taking those of others into account. It means empathy, an understanding of where the other person is coming from, what they are feeling. Love is caring enough to tune in deeply to their spirit and heart.

Love is seeing the best in another. Opening your heart to them in all their humanness..whether it be a grandchild, romantic partner, friend, or neighbor. Love is the energy that connects us all.

Photo credits: Vintage valentine cards – Susan Holt Simpson on Unsplash; Child with red heart – Anna Kolosyuk on Unsplash