Thomas Moore wrote once, "No, there's nothing half so sweet in life, As young love's dream." I love this quote, it sums up love for me. Simple, unexpecting love. Innocent love, young love's dream. It is love for the sake of love itself, but how is a person supposed to know what real love is? When does the difference come between the unconditional love that a child gives, and the love that two adults give to one another?
My friend Dan and I used to claim that we were, "in like" with girls. We had feelings for them, but we weren't sure that it was true love. We heard all of our friends throwing the word around, telling their girlfriends that they loved them, mostly with alterior motives. We decided that we could not be so careless with such a special word, because we were not mature enough to know what love really meant. I now think that we had our ideas totally backwards.
I think instead of being too young to know what real love is, we are acting too old! We expect something in return for our love now that we've "matured", instead of just full out loving like we did as children. Relationships, they take work, but love is just something that you give. Love has no strings attached, no expectations of something in return, it is just love. So, was I wrong to think that young people can't really understand love? Yes, I think I was. Did I think that any of my friends who used the word during highschool actually knew what love truly was? No, I don't think they did.
So where does that leave me? Well, I think that leaves me in a difficult place. While this may be the definition of love to me, I need to let my friends figure out what it means to them. I have a hard time standing by, but I don't think that anyone can teach someone else what real love is. It's just one of those things in life that everyone has to figure out. All I can do is, know that I have a piece of love figured out, and use it wisely. So, a toast to love!