Love Is...

I remember a Charlie Brown book my friends and I read together.  It was full of short, illustrated statements of what love is.  My favorite, the only one I remember, was, "Love is walking hand in hand."  Indeed, love takes many forms - and I wish I could remember other examples from the book.  But from the simple sweetness of walking hand in hand to more complex moments shared with the one you love, love expresses itself with a diversity as broad as the human experience.  What we think love entails when we are teenage girls smiling over Charlie Brown's simple view of love is not, we learn over time, the full story.  Love is walking hand in hand, but it is so much more.

As much as I would like to blast the annual extortion of romantically committed or hopeful individuals, I find myself comfortably mulling over what love really is on this Valentine's Day.  It's not flowers, chocolate, fine dining, and fancy jewelry.  Not to shun those, of course, but when the trappings of Valentine's Day become our symbols of love, the standards by which we measure another's love for us, these thing become cliche' and ultimately rather meaningless.  Love isn't a show we put on once a year.

In the tradition of Charlie Brown, here is my list of what love is, heavily influenced by the experience of sharing daily life with four children.

Love Is...

...  leaving hot water, or at least warning each other to wait a little while before getting second shower.

...  parting in the morning with a kiss.

...  throwing open the back door so your toddler can welcome Daddy home.

...  eye contact as he walks through the door, because a kiss would be too hard to coordinate, what with all the kids running around.

...  kissing in front of the kids, once they've calmed down a bit, mainly to gross them out, but also because you kind of still think kissing is fun.

...  watching him turn up the volume so he can hear the dialogue of the cartoon the kids have waited all week to watch.

...  a "date night" consisting of Chinese take-out shared with a bunch of hungry little people.

...  the intricate dance of putting all the kids to bed so you can share an evening together - or just enjoy the quiet.

...  not even caring what's in the theater, because you'd both rather catch up on missed episodes of Masterpiece Theatre.

...  a kiss goodnight.

...  smiling at your sleeping love when you wake up at two in the morning, suddenly aware of your midnight bed-invader who fell asleep after you lifted him up to sleep between his two favorite people.

...  taking said midnight invader back to his bed, when you'd rather tap (pound) your spouse on the arm and say, "Why don't you take him back to his bed?"

...  waking up slowly on a Saturday, reminiscing about the days when you could sleep till noon.

...  not really caring if he brings home Valentine's Day flowers, chocolate, or jewelry, just as long as he comes home.

In a word, love is home.  Cozy, chaotic, and a whole host of other adjectives, it's where we wait and where we return.  It's where we belong.

With that, and with it being right at 5:15, I should probably get our home looking a little more ready for Geoff's homecoming!  ;)