Pat Benatar sang, Love is a battlefield. I say, Love is a paradox.

Love is ethereal, elusive, engaging, encompassing. We can’t hold it, we can’t eat it, we can’t bottle it. It is external and internal – a cultural contradiction and paradox. But most of all, love is a mystery.

And perhaps that’s why it is so alluring. When we feel it – it is powerful. When it leaves us, we feel loss. The definition for love is as broad and diverse as the peoples on this planet. Love varies depending on who you talk to, where they live, how they grew up and what their individual experiences have been in that emotional colliseum.

I believe so many of us get caught up in semantics of love – well, do you love her or are you IN love with her, a friend may ask. Umm – I don’t know – is there a guideline for that? We try to pigeon-hole love, by categorizing it, labeling it, charting it up. That helps us to understand it as best we can, much as the ancients believed in various Gods governing the different elements of life and nature. We too feel the need to make sense of the “thunder” if you will – the tremors in our hearts when we encounter love, the shaking of the earth beneath our feet. I suspect it gives us a sense of security (albeit a false one) to understand it and reign it in. We yearn for control – and love, by it’s very definition, is uncontrollable.

Perhaps I’m reading too much… 🙂