Love

Do you remember the first word you heard as a child? Most people may say, not really, in fact that was my initial response to my own question. Then I decided to think about it a bit more and started to realise that love was the first one word that I understood or that could be taken for granted. The second word was probably ma-ma.

At the beginning, every child is the apple of their parent's eyes and although you may not remember all the wonderful words and phrases said to you, I love you is always a really big emotion when most mothers and fathers are looking at their children. Over the years I started thinking very hard about what the word love really meant to people and are we all given the same definition of love. I was never told exactly what love was or how to identify it, but I just assumed that it would be a great emotion like the one my mother or father demonstrated toward us children. Even when getting spanked for being naughty, I can remember being told that I am "whupping" your butt because you have been a bad little boy today and you know I love you. That's when it became confusing. Did it mean if you are misbehaving, you should expect me to punch you in the stomach or face? Not at all, now I am just being silly.

Growing up in a large family with 2 uncles and 10 aunts we heard the phrase, love you, all the time and it would make us smile although we had no idea what it meant except they were smiling when they said it or patting me and my siblings on the back which must have meant something good. When they returned from work or shopping they always had a sweet nibble for us kids. That had to be love, right? Love was never questioned in my family or explained to any of us. I desperately wanted to know what love was and how do you know if you love someone? I truly thought that if I loved one of my childhood friends I would show it by sharing half of my cookie or a piece of cake with them. Let's get it straight, I don't like sharing any of my desserts or sweet treats with anyone. Still, it was rather confusing what this thing called love was all about.

I use to say, I love Sally Ann because she was beautiful with curly golden hair and she was so much fun. I was 7 years old at the time and Sally Ann was a beautiful cocker spaniel puppy that one of my Aunt's got for me. I loved Sally Ann and would share my food and bed with her and often I would crawl into Sally's dog house outside and we would take naps together during the day while my Aunt was searching the neighbourhood looking for me so that she could take me back home. We couldn't have pets where I lived, so Sally Ann lived with my Aunt in a nicer part of town and often I would live there too. My aunt was single with no children and she loved me like I was her little boy, so I loved her too.

As I grew up the word love became more and more confusing. Being like a 3-year old all of my life, I asked lots of questions about love to everyone that I knew. During my entire schooling I would watch people dating and wondered, are they in love. I watched movies on the television and thought, wow, that's true love. There will be fireworks on the first kiss or date and a big wedding. Well, that wasn't part of reality, not for me anyway. When I questioned my mother she would say, "Boy, stop asking me so many questions, you will learn what it is when it happens. Even more confusing right? I mostly remember my mother saying that you should never have sex with another person until you are sure that you love them and marriage would follow. At the time I became more confused but dared not to ask the big question floating in my head, what is sex? I just walked away thinking that it must be a delicious dessert with whipped cream.

Being very observant and an active listener, even as a kid, I would tune in to conversations and my ears would perk up when I heard the word love. I remember pretending to be so engrossed in playing with my toy cars, the little blue Ford Mustang and a red pickup truck, but listening to every single word that was spoken in the room. When good gossip was being shared, my mother would look at me and say little pictures (pitchers) have big ears and she would switch to speaking Creole with her friends and siblings who grew up in New Orleans and others areas of Louisiana. The language Creole is based on French and on the African languages spoken by slaves brought from West Africa to work on plantations. It is often incorrectly described as a French dialect or as “broken French”. In fact, it is a language in its own right with its own pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and pragmatics. For me and my cousins, they could have been speaking pig latin as far as we were concerned since we only knew key words, such as, fout ou deyo, and that was our signal to go out and play.

Love seems to be used in so many different ways. Here are some of the examples of how love has been used:

• After seeing a great movie - I love that movie

• Seeing your favourite actor or actress on the screen - I love her or him

• Those shoes, I must have them today

• I love my dog, cat, goldfish or for me it was our raccoons in the backyard

• This apartment or I love your apartment

• After reading a good book - I love that book

• I love white chocolate, I love dark chocolate, I love peanut jelly sandwiches everyday

• I love my car more than anything

• Love taking long walks everyday

• I love my job

• Love learning new things in life

• Barack and Michelle Obama, I love them

• Oh, I love springtime in Paris

• I love everything about Puerto Rico

And the list could go on forever. I am sure that you can add another 10 items to the list.

After being involved in several relationships, okay, many relationships throughout my life, no one was able to answer the question successfully. I spoke with many people of all ages and they struggled to explain to me that love was something special that I would feel in my heart. I didn't know what that meant at all, would it be like a stabbing. Another said, it's like being hit over the head with a baseball bat. Would I survive such a blow to my head? Well, that didn't sound very nice to me. Finally someone said, when your eyes meet someone so special you will feel your heart pound loudly. I tried it and for 3 months my heart beat loudly until we wanted to kill each other. I am still not sure where the love went or if it was there at all. I have attended weddings of friends and family members and I can see the twinkle of love in their eyes, but for some reason love often acts like an out of town visitor and leaves the scene. Many of those lovebirds are now divorced, remarried, and divorced again. So is love a gateway to building something stronger together.

Webster dictionary defines love as, a strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties, maternal love for a child; love can be an attraction based on sexual desire; affection and tenderness felt by lovers; for example, after all these years, they are still very much in love. Very confusing isn't it? So if two people have a sexual desire for each other, does that mean they are in love or in love with sex?

According to well known psychotherapist, David Richo, Ph.D, "Love is not a feeling so much as a way of being present with other people." Richo says that love consists of 5 key items:

• Attention

• Affection

• Appreciation

• Acceptance

• Allowing

Dr. Richo adds, "When we love people we listen to them with undivided attention. We demonstrate warmth and affection for them. We appreciate them for who they are on a deep level. We allow them to do what they need to do and feel what they need to feel to live their lies." He adds, "All relationships require these 5 items. In addition to his psychotherapy work, Dr. Richo is a teacher, writer, and workshop leader whose work emphasizes the benefits of mindfulness and loving-kindness in personal growth and emotional well-being. He is the author of numerous books, including How to Be an Adult in Relationships and The Five Things We Cannot Change.

Finally one day I realised that true love does exist between good friends. That's when things started to change and make sense to me. Finally, the lightbulb in my head turned on. I discovered the difference between true friends and fake ones. Once those fake figures were eliminated, the true friends were like bright sunlight on a foggy day. There is nothing that friends won't do for each other. True friends also know how to hear your pain when you have not uttered a single word. I love my friends with all my heart because they are always honest with me and ring the alarm if I am ever out of line or acting like a prick. Love creates a strong bond between friends. For example, I would drop everything if a true friends needed me to be somewhere, even if it meant getting on a plane and being by their side. An interesting fact is that true friends hardly ever ask for anything, but that's when the intuition of friendship love becomes active.

Loving yourself first is the key to being able to love another person. Often we can be our own worse enemy with internal voices telling us many negative things that may keep us feeling down about ourselves. Many of us were never taught how to love ourselves and suddenly we had to try and figure it out. It's not easy, but it's also not impossible. Like anything it's takes time and it becomes a positive habit that gets repeated daily until it starts to feel comfortable and the negative big mouths in our head become silent. One of the things that I do daily is practice mindfulness meditation and walks that focus on self love and self appreciation. It has helped me to reduce the amount of self critiques. The voices are always there, but the key is how we react to them.

As a result, true love and relationships started to appear. Throughout my life I have been fortunate enough to have four loving relationships. I lost one of my partners during the AIDS crisis in San Francisco and two of them are still my best friends and there is nothing we wouldn't do for each other. I am still with my fourth partner today. I can barely believe that we have been together for 25 years. Most people serve less time in prison for murder.

I would love to know how you learned about love and what type of experiences convinced you that it was true love? Also, did your parents teach you about love or did you get explanations from others in your high school gym classes, reading romance novels or watching Murder She Wrote with Jessica Fletcher, like me?