Love is ...
A reflection on love
Today is the 14th of February, and I just opened the Instagram app. No guesses as to the first song I heard. Yes, you probably guessed it: L.O.V.E
“L is for the way you look at me …” I think we all know the rest.
Frank Sinatra is not the first person to write or sing about this all-encompassing romantic type of love. And when you listen to the lyrics of that song, when you really listen … you can hear echoes of the dark or toxic elements that can sometimes originate from romantic love: it can be narcissistic and can block out all others. “O is for the only one I see”.
The message most of us have received from society since childhood is that if you haven’t found this type of romantic love by your third or fourth decade, you are doomed to a life of loneliness, and if you are a woman, bitterness and god forbid cats (I don’t understand the slight on cats, they are hilarious and a source of endless entertainment). Romantic love is often held up as the pinnacle of love, and as embarrassing as this is to admit, I held it up this way until very recently. I held hope that one day, some exceptionally benevolent man would come along like a knight in shining armour, sweep me off my feet and take me to a place where I would feel completely whole. The irony of this type of magical thinking is that I dreamt that one man could cure the trauma inflicted by another, but that is a story for another day. Today’s story is about love … the friendship kind. Lately, I have been filled with a profound sense of gratitude to my friends for their unconditional acts of kindness and love toward me, so I suppose this is my little love song and ode to them. Please try to imagine the following to the tune of L.O.V.E lol.
Love is
Love is in the way you text me … hey Han do you wanna jam with me? (on spotify for context, imagine Frank singing, imagine me in my bed late at night, feeling sad, depressed and alone and this ray of light pinging on my phone)
Love is for the way you confide in me (I feel honoured you trust me with your fears, and I trust you with mine, I love you and wish I could take away what you are going through, I’m glad I got to tell you I love you)
Love is for how, despite your own pain and trauma, you saw mine and lent me money to get my car on the road because you know I’m dependent on it with my disability … how very very extraordinary … not many people are generous when it comes to money, ok I know this is not rhyming and probably can’t be sung along to the tune of L.O.V.E but anyway I’m going to keep going.
Love is how you visited me when I was in an impatient mental health unit and never judged me, and how you told me you were proud when I got my L.L.M, but I was hard on myself for not getting a higher result.
Love is sending me chocolate advent calendars at Christmas when I was at breaking point.
And to my friends who are no longer here:
Love means you are always in my heart,
T, thank you for encouraging me to study law and for giving me my first copy of the 1937 Constitution in the homeless services … I wish I could have done better … but you helped me live.
V, thank you for being a mentor and, for telling me I deserved nice things as much as the next person, because even though I didn’t truly believe it, it mattered that you said it and that it came from you.
D, thank you for ringing me so often when I’d cry to you on the phone and like my other amazing friends, even when you were sick and suffering your own pain.
C, thank you for caring about whether I was cold when you had far more important things to worry about.
La da da da …
I could keep singing my own song for pages, as I write, I feel an absolute swell of love for my friends. I have never felt worthy of love, but in sitting to write this, I have realised I have been so loved, and I am so loved. Even in the cruelty of death, for all it takes it does not take the love you have for your friends, it is enduring. If friendship is the only type of love, I ever experience again, then it is more than enough … in fact, it is everything, I could not walk my path without the love of my friends.