It’s officially March! Spring is in the air. I know this because it’s getting a little bit easier to leave the comfort of my covers each morning and take on the day. Does existential dread still hit as soon as the sun sets? Absolutely! But are the days getting longer? Also yes!

It’s been awhile since I’ve turned to publicly writing on this platform, mainly because I’m losing ideas and was stuck in a month-long insecurity-rut. It’s funny, last month I published the 23 lessons I learned and then immediately forgot that I learned all of them. Alas, feeling newly rejuvenated and ready to talk about…

Love.

This was originally a post I intended to write around Valentine’s Day but didn’t for whatever reason. That holiday, to me, is so special, because how often do we all take a moment to appreciate all that we have? All of the people who bring us joy? 

In our defense, it can be hard to — and capitalism makes it even more difficult. We are so caught up in the consumerist way of life that we begin to equate love and joy with how much monetary gain we have. Love becomes associated with the physical items in our life rather than the people and the memories that define our very being. 

In this way of life, the line between love and greed becomes blurry. To put it simply, we can see how the American empire has fallen in love with power and dominance — figuring out ways to make other nations small so that we are bigger. And better. That is not love. That is destruction. And, until we open our hearts to a collective love, one day, this mass destruction will catch up to us all. 

I recently finished Bell Hooks’ All About Love (and shout-out to Kate for gifting it to me), and am realizing just how antithetical this western culture is to our evolutionary success. Without love, we don’t have a reason to go on; we lack community; we forget who we are. Love is at the core of why we are here (no, but literally). 

Until we learn to love life, we will fear death. 

As Bell Hooks writes, and with which I agree, this requires us to dig a little deeper and come to terms with a communal definition of what love is. This can be difficult because I do believe that people have different love languages — different ways of giving and receiving. But it starts with understanding that love is not something that can be attained or bought or ever fully realized, but that love is something that is in constant motion. Love is a choice. 

The beauty, too, is that love can be created and reborn. The truth is that not all of us were loved in the ways we needed to be before. We can be deprived of love, give so much of ourselves only for that to not be reciprocated. We can search and search and not see it anywhere. But the truth is that love is all around us. And, if you don’t immediately see it, it’s up to you to find ways to create it. The rest will follow. 

I realized this in intense periods of isolation, when I felt no one was reaching out to me or really cared. And, even when people were showing me their ways of loving, I turned a blind eye to it because I had closed my heart to the idea. Then it dawned up to me, with help from my partner and therapist, that love is a two-way street. I had the ability to begin making plans, to FaceTiming friends, to sending gifts, to hugging loved ones. I had the power to love. It is a true extension of your soul. 

And I do believe the absence of love helps us better understand the kind of love we really need. The ways we want to show up and be there. 

Read the book. It’s an essential read if you want to be a good human, one that cares about and for others, one that is confident and in love with self, one that knows where love lacks and how to bring it to life again. One that is truly living.