Today I put forth the conjecture that "love" is the single most misunderstood word in the English language.

I've been thinking about those four letters and what I want to say about them and how to best illustrate what's been bouncing about in my head, and I keep returning to this irritating little joke trapped somewhere back there in my brain among other assorted vestiges of childhood frustration (okay, my life wasn't that hard- but doesn't a little melodrama make for better stories? come on...).

Anyway, you know the one...where somebody says, "I looooooooove [insert inane item here: i.e. spaghetti, flip-flops, chocolate milk, colored shoelaces...]" and then somebody else feeling full of themselves teases, "Oh yeah? Yeah, you love spaghetti? You love spaghetti, do you? Well, then...then....then, why don't you marry it??!?!"

And the funny thing is that when you do this to a child, the response, almost universally, will be a moment of uncertain and utter confusion. "Because...well...because... you can't marry chocolate milk...duh, chocolate milk's not a person!"

Because obviously. Obviously, because, well, that's not what he or she meant. But...there's just something about it that's enough to throw somebody small a little off balance...because it doesn't make sense.

I guess I'm still somebody small sometimes. Because I was just noticing that sometimes, even if you substitute a human being for an inane object, the old joke is just as absurd. There are some human beings whom I love, but would not marry for obvious reasons. But then there are these other, seemingly eligible people, people who I love, who could conceivably become my spouse, but just...don't fit...that confuse me.

I have been confused because I really thought that that sentence, "I love [whomever]," needed to apply to one person, and that that one person would then be the appropriate person to exchange a ring with, and that would be that. And, um, that wasn't working out or making sense.

And I got fed up enough with trying to make it make sense that I just sort of figured I must be different than all those people who choose partners or something, and that was that.

But as is so often the case, as soon as you decide that that is that, you notice that this is this and this is that.

So this is this:
There is somebody in my life who makes it better. Somebody who drives me crazy sometimes, who I can pick apart and find faults with when I've really determined to, but who nevertheless, I like to be with. Somebody who is on my team, who complements me and supports me when I get in over my head (which I somewhat sheepishly admit to having occasionally done... that said, also somebody who kind of likes it when I drag him into things a little deeper than he might otherwise have gone.) Somebody who isn't the same as me, but gets me as well as anybody anyways; and somebody whose differences I learn from. Somebody who has strengths that meet my weaknesses and weaknesses for my strengths to meet. Somebody who makes me laugh, who gets [most of] my jokes (I still don't get it why not everbody can do this; cmon, guys, i am funny...), who listens attentively, or at least pretends, to my rambling stories, who thinks I am most beautiful when I feel most beautiful, when I have just finished a run. Somebody who makes me look forward to challenges, because I'm part of a pair that can take on big stuff. Somebody who has somehow become such a part of my life that I took him for granted until he almost wasn't. And then I realized that that would have made me very sad indeed.

And this is that:
I still don't have a handle on what l-o-v-e specifially means. I can say without a doubt that I love: my new running shoes (with the orange laces!), crest lemon toothpaste, angsty California boy rock music, Bouguereau paintings and the kind of moments where I'm moved to dance in that special way that only I can (if you've seen it, consider yourself among the priveleged). I don't understand all the little nuances of this word, how to quantify it or how it can apply to all these vastly different things, not to mention a whole lot of vastly different people in my life. Whatever. I know it's good, and to give up all that love would be bad, but that sometimes it really makes things confusing. But all of that confusion aside, there is this one thing I'm pretty clear on. And it's important.

Don't you wish I would tell you? : )