And I jokingly ask, "How did you love me today?"
Yes, I'm joking, because I'm gently prodding her to think about what she said, and she knows this. It's worth asking, because 'love' is a verb.
Love is the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's growth... Love is as love does. Love is an act of will -- namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.
To love is to act, consciously, for the betterment of another person in some way. "This is how I loved you today: I brought you dinner. I cleaned up a mess I knew bothered you. I kept the dogs quiet, so you could enjoy a book in silence."
Of all the misconceptions about love, the most powerful (and pervasive) is the belief that "falling in love" is love -- or at least a manifestation of love. It is a potent misconception, because falling in love is subjectively experienced, in a very powerful way, as an experience of love. When a person falls in love what they feel is: "I love him" or "I love her."
The experience of "falling in love" is specifically a sex-linked experience.
We do not fall in love with our children or our parents, even though we may love them very deeply.
We do not fall in love with our friends, even though we may care for them very much.
We fall in love only when we are sexually motivated, whether consciously or unconsciously.
Falling in love is not an act of will, as it is not a conscious choice. No matter how open to it, or eager for it, we may be -- the experience may still elude us. The experience may capture us at times when we are definitely not seeking it, when it is inconvenient and even undesirable. We are as likely to fall in love with someone with whom we are obviously ill-matched as with someone more suitable. Discipline and will can only control the experience; they cannot create it. We can choose how to respond to the experience of falling in love, but we cannot choose the experience itself.
The experience of falling in love is invariably temporary. No matter with whom we fall in love, we sooner or later fall "out" of love. That feeling of lovingness that characterizes the experience of falling in love always passes. The honeymoon always ends. The bloom of romance always fades.
When the honeymoon of "falling in love" ends, and when the bloom is off the rose, that's when we are ready to love. That's when we put aside our unconscious desires, and embrace our conscious will: To love someone.
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