I write a lot about love. Maybe that is why the movie of the same name kinda had a soft spot in my heart. That aside, I think it's time for me to bid the topic adieu for a bit. I have realized tonight that I muse on it so much because I feel that it is this elusive reality that I have never gotten to taste. I tell myself and others that I have never really been in love before. And I have been told by some that, "You just haven't been in a relationship. You'll understand someday." Bullshit. Sure I have not sustained a relationship for a long period of time or lived with someone or had a manic fight, but is that the definition of love? Do we let others lives define love for us, or do we let the life that we lead define love?

I imagine there are some universal truths to love. There are feelings that we all can relate to, where our heart melts in another's presence. But how is it that one can say what defines true love? One of my best friends, who always seemed to despise love, is now on the verge of moving in with her boyfriend. When she first told me, I thought to myself, "Well, is it too soon for all of this? I mean, shouldn't they be waiting at least a year before they move in?" However, as I watched them together, I realized that the love between them couldn't be judged by the "rules" set up by some starnger to them. Why not move in together, if that is what they are feeling? It's their love. They know it best. Which brought me to my conclusion about love and my own experience with it.

Someday, I will fall in love in a way that will define "deeply in love" for me. But until then, I can no longer tell myself that I have never been in love. I have. I have been in love, and I have been pained by its loss. I have been overwhelmed by it's joy. I have even had the great opportunity to taste its kiss. But my love looks like no one elses. Mine is not the kind that you see on television or in film. I think that is the kind of love that most people are struggling to create, which causes so much disappointment in love. Why doesn't ours look like the kind in "Love, Actually"? It sounds silly to think it, but haven't a few of us at some point compared our love life to that of Carrie Bradshaw's? We all want the romance and the passion. And we think that until we get it the way we imagine it should be, then we have not found "the one". Even if we are in a relationship, it's great, "but it needs a little fixing." However, we just have to learn more about who we are to know what "deeply in love" means to us, and not to the writers of "Notting Hill". Then we can start to comment on what is love and what isn't.

Can I truly retire the topic of love? Probably not completely. But I am retiring the quest, and the need that has driven a lot of my inquiry. Love is a mystery. Even those of us who know we have felt it still wonder why. It is the glorious explosion of emotion that every heart is capable of. Yes, including mine. And yours.

So, I am off to love. In silence.

What about it?