What is love?

My man and I have just celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary.  We don't always buy each other gifts and there is never any expectation to buy them.  He bought me a gorgeous silk scarf and I gave him some bed linen (a gorgeous white doona set I loved).

This got me thinking about what is love?  Is love buying gifts the other person wants, is love showing them you love them them every day by doing things for them (like making lunch or coffees or things like that), is love just being there for each other when you need to be, is it being there even though you don't think you need them?  There are so many different ways we can express love to others and so many different types of love.

In our early years we have love for our parents, siblings, wider family, friends this is formative love.  This is when we really learn about love I think.  Growing up I knew categorically that I was loved, it didn't matter what I did and I did lots that upset my parents (the worst being getting my father's drivers licence cancelled back in the day when having a gold licence was a big deal!!!) sure they were disappointed and even angry with me but I always knew without a doubt I was loved!

As we move through our teenage years we discover the love for another person an equal to us, that we usually fall deeply and madly in love with.  Well let's face it we think that is love but really it's infatuation because the first opportunity that someone better comes along we fall deeply and madly with them and again and again the cycle often for some of us repeats itself over and over.  I know that when I think back there was AT least 4 possibly more that I was going to spend the rest of my life with!  I have two extra engagement rings as a testament to this.  When I think of my man I know that in the end I married the right guy.

Then you get married and have children and boy nothing prepares you for that love!  The love a parent has for a child is indescribable, to me it is something that is unending and sometimes it is a love so strong you think you might suffocate from it. I never knew the strength of the love that I would feel for my children, when I had our son I truly thought my heart was full and would explode with the love I felt for him and I just wasn't sure that if I had more children I would have enough love to go around but then I had my twins and boy I found out in an instant that your heart simply swells to make room for more children.

Love for me is an undying friendship, it is passionate, it is being there for each other when the chips are down, it's butterflies in the tummy (but not all the time), it's loving the present you get even though you hate it and to me most important of all it's knowing that they are the one person you want to see you naked and when you are old!

What is love for you?