Defining Love

Define Love:   1.  tender and passionate affection for another person.   2.  deep and strong affection for a friend or relative.   

So I defined love.  Big deal.  The true definition of love, however, is different for everyone.  So here I go again, spouting off and pretending to know something about love, and wondering, does anyone really know what "true" love is?  So instead of saying to you, this is how love is defined, instead, the following is my personal experience of what love is.  

When I was an infant, I loved my mother.   Thus, beginning my first personal experience with love.  The love between mother and child is a strong love, probably the strongest that exists.  Mother vows to protect child, and child need do nothing but exist.  In return, child gives her loyalty and unconditional trust to Mother.  

However, as I grew, and my willingness to allow the rest of the world in, I learned a different love.   My second love became nature, and everything in it.. especially animals. My love for animals became almost a mystical emotion, a passion that most children feel at one time or another, but dies over the years. 
My love did not die. Instead, that love turned into a passion for animals, and a dream to someday rescue animals in need of any kind of help, be it shelter, food, or security from cruel humans. (Trust me, Mankind is a cruel beast indeed.) This prepared me for the next kind of love.  

A love between a woman and a man, is as mysterious as time itself.  It takes many broken chances with love, much heartache, and a lifetime of Mr. Wrongs to find the Mr. Right. 
I found him a couple of years back.  He literally saved my life. 

This love is a very different love than the previous two.  First, although it is a devotion like a maternal love, there is no blood ties, or anything else connecting man and woman.  Just pure adoration and respect.  
Then, a passion for animals, or other hobbies, is nothing compared to the passion between a man and a woman who are truly in love.  
So the circle goes on.

I have now become the mother, and someday my children will discover love on their own, hopefully. 

Loyalty to family, passion for life, and the love between husband and wife. 

So what does love mean to me?  It means being passionate about something, knowing you were meant to step forward, and going for it with everything you have., even if it hurts along the way.   

And thus, I defined love.