I think in the same way that I blog. My mind knows it’s best work happens in little short bursts that are just long enough to make a post, but not long enough to become a short story. So here was my thought bubble from last night that I had the decency to write down.

What if love is not as special as we make it out to be? What if we have made ourselves believe that we are only supposed to fall in love with one, maybe two people when in reality we fall in love with dozens of people over the course of our lives? Why have we come to define “love” as an everlasting, unique feeling that has to be shared by two people in order to be properly acknowledged? I dispute this former definition of the famous four-letter word and propose a new meaning.

LOVE is, essentially, in it’s most innocent form, what you feel when you have strong feelings for someone; when you can look back and still feel a few small butterflies flittering around in the pit of your stomach; when you can say (perhaps against your greatest will) that at one time you would have considered going to the ends of the earth for someone. I would argue that love, in it’s most premature form, is when you feel more than a usual crush on someone, meaning that in my lifetime, I can think back to dozens, maybe more, times that I have been in love. Before yesterday, I would have said that sounds terrifying. But today I see it with much a more undiluted view. Maybe love isn’t that romantic idealized thing that the human race has come to place on a golden pedestal. Maybe it’s…commonplace.

Having this new way of thinking makes life a lot less stressful. It takes the responsibility and the originality out of love, which also makes it less scary. It allows each person to acknowledge that it is okay to fall in and out of love at whatever pace they want, and not feel limited by the traditional paths that love is “supposed” to take (one: two people meet, they are attracted to each other, gradually fall in love, happy ending OR two: two people meet, one is attracted to the other, gradually falls in love, and gets their heart broken). Now, it seems, love doesn’t have to be heartbreaking and earth-shattering if it isn’t that big of a deal. There is no particular loss involved, except for the possible feelings of short-lived insecurity and loneliness. But it is comforting, to me, to think that each person I have ever loved will always have their own slice of the pie that is given it’s shape depending on how far that love progressed.

I’m not sure if what I am writing is clear. I feel as though this is a revelation that I need to sort through and perhaps make more cohesive. I wish I could just sit down with Plato right now and discuss.