As a child, I remember "showing" my parents how much I loved them, by spreading my arms as far as they could reach, "Mommy and Daddy, I love you T—H—I—S much!." When they countered with an even "bigger" love, we would continue to up the stakes with ever greater ultimatums. The apostle Paul once said "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me" (1 Corinthians 13:11, NIV). I agree with this reasoning. I feel that at every point our love is evolving and we’re gaining a better understanding of what love is. As infants we had a primal, basic love instinct. As children, it was more quantitative than qualitative. Even now we are gaining an understanding of what it means to love one another and what our parents have done because they love us.
As teenagers, many of us rebelled against what seemed to be a smothering love. At the precipice between a qualitative and quantitative understanding, and beginning to show our love for others in a more adult way, it was more difficult to express those feelings for our parents. I could no longer stretch out my arms to show our parents how much I loved them, nor could I write romantic poems declaring my love. I feel that a more adult display of love is in everyday interactions; hugging my mother and father, telling them that I love them, and carrying on normal conversations. Even setting apart time that I could be spending with Jordan, so that they will feel that I love and appreciate them too.
Love of others also grows and changes with us, from birth to old age. In elementary school, male-female relations were at best strained. Boys had "cooties," and I can remember friends telling me not to do such-and-such, or I would have to kiss so-and-so. In fact, my first kiss was in second grade, on the bus, because my friend was a victim of such a situation and I wanted to help her out. Our peers did not allow love to transcend genders as a child, except for the love of our parents. Growing older, our perception of love changed, and we were introduced the merits of boyfriends and girlfriends, and not simply in order to emulate Mom and Dad.
My fiancé Jordan and I met by chance during a group outing arranged by friends. Though it was not "love at first sight," there was still a definite attraction. Almost three years later, I can still remember how wonderfully loved and special I felt when we first started going out. I spent that whole first week simply GLOWING with the knowledge that someone that wonderful thought that I was wonderful too. Even now that feeling creeps up on me, and I feel so warm and fuzzy inside that I simply have to give myself a hug. Yet is this the summit of the evolution of love? No, we are still growing.
Our relationship has slowly progressed, from "just dating," to "going out," to being a definite couple, and now we are engaged. It has survived the rigors of distance and time apart, and I think we’ve grown stronger because of it. Likewise, our love has progressed from that initial attraction to wanting to live the rest of our lives together, and I am sure that that feeling will continue to grow as we learn and age together.
How deep and meaningful is it, the first time you tell someone that you love them? For some people, it is so important they may wait months to tell their special someone. They want to be sure that they feel very deeply about that person. I can't even remember the first time I told Jordan I loved him. I probably did it out of shock, in response to him saying it to me. Even sometimes now, I say it in response, out of habit. I still mean it, though, and I don't love him any less for it. For me, the definitions and depths of love vary. Yes, I loved Jordan when I first told him so. Yet I love him more so now, and I'm sure that definition of love will continue to change as I do.
What, then, is love? I feel there is no true response to that, because even as we define it, it changes. Attempting to hedge it in and force it to conform to a definition makes it slip away even faster, like squeezing a fist full of sand. Growing older and experiencing more of what life has to offer can give us a better understanding, but we would have to live for eons and eons to grasp the truth.