What is Love?

[Pieces of My Life]

What is the goal of love?

Is it to be together with one’s beloved for the rest of their lives? Or is it to remain happy by making and simply knowing that the other person is happy? Or is it a serene stage where one is peacefully engulfed by the memories that they have built together?

Or is it all of the above?

What is pining?

Is it the longing to be with one’s beloved? Or is it the longing for the feeling that the love of that person can bring?

Is it both?

What is love?

Romantic love comes in so many different forms yet we try to fit it in a small cube where only couples dwell.

What about the love where one watches from afar and yet smiles whenever the other person laughs, even if it is with someone else?

What about the love that lingers in the disguise of friendship, always aware that their real identity will never find a place at the table, and yet giving in everything that they have?

And what about the love that painfully splits itself to shine on different souls, not because the heart is promiscuous, but because it owes a piece of itself to each one of them? The pieces will never fit in seamlessly, and the edges will always wound. But the heart cannot function without any one of these, and has to bear the pain for all eternity.

What is love if not a bittersweet reminder of the fact that we are still alive?