Valentine’s day has arrived once again. Such is the nature of the calendar.
I wanted to make a post that was relevant to the holiday this time around and I thought to myself, “What about Valentine’s Day could I write about?”
I could write about how it’s important to love yourself as well as those close to you. About not neglecting your loved ones regardless of what day it is. There are probably a great many of topics and angles I could’ve taken.
But I thought, well, I’m a writer, I like stories, I like reading, and love is one of those themes that permeates almost all of our stories. Maybe almost all of our actions. Maybe almost everything there is. Hopefully almost everything there is.
Some of our oldest stories feature love. The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer are two VERY old stories that come to mind. The Trojan war was fought over love. Over the love of and for one woman. Odysseus spent ten years trying to get home to his wife.
Those stories both have a great many things going on but certainly, love played a large role in the character’s stories.
William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a tragic love story set in fair Verona. I would argue it’s one of his most famous works and one of the most famous love stories, no, stories in general, that we have. It’s hundreds of years old and we still love it today.
As with Iliad and Odyssey, the stories don’t have to be specifically about love, as Romeo and Juliet is. Movies and books and TV shows often have a love interest for the protagonist despite the story not being centered around their love.
Think of the songs you listen to. How many of them are about love? I personally prefer jazz. Big band stuff like Frank Sinatra and Michael Buble. That genre is particularly filled with love. Nearly every song I hear is about love. Pop music is filled with it, country music is filled with it. You don’t even need lyrics for music to be about love. Classical composers of the past and present convey romantic sentiments in their works.
Why do we feel so compelled by love? We can’t seem to escape it. We spend our lives looking for someone to share it with. And there isn’t much that hurts more than a broken heart.
I could dispassionately tell you that it might be a biological tendency of ours as animals and mortal beings. To pass on our genes is at the base of our nature and is required for our species continued existence. I could dispassionately tell you that there are legal and financial benefits to marriage.
But that wouldn’t be very romantic of me, would it?
We are more than beasts, led around by our instincts alone. We are the only beings on this Earth blessed (and cursed) with higher thought. We are more than legal and financial entities.
Thus, we find ourselves with love. The most powerful force in existence.
Love for your neighbor (Even if they’re annoying. I’m looking at you, Flanders). Love for your significant other or spouse. Love for music, for books, and for food. For your pets. Your pet’s love for you. Love for yourself. For God. God’s love for you. Love for life itself.
Love opens us up to feeling. I don’t just mean feeling love. I mean feeling everything. Sorrow, joy, spite, forgiveness.
Feeling is the essence of what makes us human. We feel because we are. We shouldn’t lose it nor should we want to.
All the pain you’ve felt, all the happiness. The losses, the gains. Those are the things that made you who you are. And I bet you love had a hand in it in some form or another. You worked at your craft and bettered yourself because you love yourself enough to improve your lot in life. You wanted to share those experiences with someone else so you fell in love. It didn’t work out and you experienced a pain so intense that you thought no one else had ever felt before. But they have. And they’ve gone on to do amazing things and they continued to love. And so will you.
Valentine’s Day is undoubtedly a Hallmark Holiday, but there is potential for something more.
The next time you step outside and look up at the pale moon and twinkling stars, consider what it means to you. How many stories of star-crossed lovers have been told under that same sky? How many stories of a true and pure love?
The next time you hear the story of Romeo and Juliet, consider how you will one day be reunited with your love and your family and your pets.
Consider the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson when he said, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” I remember a time not long ago when I would hear those words and ask, “is it?”
It is.
Regardless of if you are with someone you love tonight or if you find yourself alone, consider what love means to you. Do you push it away, letting yourself grow cold?
Or do you let it into your heart? Do you allow yourself to ply it into your trade and into your life?
We are obsessed with love because it so often defines who we are and what we do. Do not try to escape it.
Thank you for reading.