This post from my archives has been on my mind lately. I decided to revisit and revise it based on the human I am today. It’s been kind of an ear-worm of late.
I hope it resonates.
A former partner once told me that I use the word 'love' too frequently. We were together for more than four years and I can count on my hands the number of times he told me he loved me. I even remember thanking him at one point for teaching me what love really is. I realize now that I was fawning.
My former partner was wrong. I fully know what love is. I love well and I love many. I love honestly and I love deeply. And I love differently. I understand the nuance of love—and I don’t hold it back. I give it freely because I believe it is important. I believe it is how we soften hearts and change the world.
It makes me really sad that I doubted myself for all of that time based on the judgmental words of this partner that I wanted to please.
Part of the problem for me is that we don’t have enough words in the English language to describe all of the different types of love.
The Greeks had eight words1, but even those don’t fully hit on the love that I feel.
I love my kid, Ethan
That’s a specific kind of love. It’s not Storge (familial love), Agape (unconditional love), or Pragma (obligatory love).
It’s so much bigger. He was the first person to teach me the true depth of love. He did it the minute he came out of my body. He cracked my heart open.
I don’t know what you call that love, but it is central to my experience of that emotion as I walk around on this planet.
The moment he came into the world and I saw his face and held him, I realized how much my mom loved me. A universe of love filled my body. The baseline of love that I have for my kid never goes away, it grows and changes over time. He’s 23 years-old now and I watch the man that he is becoming and I am so proud and in awe and grateful that he exists in the world.
The love I have for him is always connected to the love I have for his dad. Joel is a huge part of raising this human—he also provided half of the DNA to make this Ethan. Joel is grounded while I am not. The love that I have for Joel expands to his wife and her family as well as Joel’s family of origin. They are all essential to Ethan’s world. He is the human that he is in large part because of these people in his life.
I definitely don’t have the words for the love I feel about anyone I’ve listed in the paragraph above. Maybe it’s close to Storge, but that doesn’t feel quite right because we aren’t really ‘family’ in the traditional sense anymore. It’s also not Pragma—I have no obligation to love them. It might be have sprinklings of Philia (deep friendship and affection), but that feels so surface in this case.
I don’t have a word. I just have love for those humans. And oddly enough, I don’t tell them when I see them. Maybe I need to start that practice—or maybe that’s too weird because we don’t have enough words for love in the English language and it would just sound off somehow.
Ethan tells me he loves me every time he hangs up the phone or whenever we leave each others presence—and I do the same for him.
I love my nesting partner, Steve.
And boy, this one is complicated. It’s not Storge, Agape, Pragma or Philia. It’s also not just Eros (sexual desire). It’s more than all of those.
He tells me he loves me multiple times a day every day! I do the same for him. Our emotional feels bump up against each other in really hard ways. Sometimes we can’t hear each other, but we always try. He is the one that helps me to see those childhood wounds and is willing to work on healing them together even though it’s scary.
He’s my Elf! We share a brain. He’s the person that I get to be creative with and explore hopes and dreams and an imagined future.
He knows me so well that he can hold me even when I am not in my authentic self and still say “I love you” and mean it. He makes my heart big.
What do you call that kind of love? How do you encompass that in a word?
I love Lachlan, my partner that I don’t live with.
Lachlan is calm and measured and insightful. He allows me to see his vulnerability and it is such a gift. It isn’t Storge, Agape, Pragma, Philia or Eros. Sometimes it’s Ludus (playful flirting). It might even be adjacent to Philautia (self-love) because he’s a mirror to that for me. Still, the words aren’t quite right.
Lachlan sees me in a way that no one else does and he reflects it back with such joy and thoughtfulness. He asks questions with honest curiosity and he doesn’t judge. He opens doors and provides fodder for thought. He has walked through so many fires and comes out with gold filling in the broken parts like Japanese pottery—a stronger and more beautiful piece of art. We connect and spend time in introspection in ways that I don’t with anyone else. He can say the hard things and I can hear them because I know I am safe and I am loved. I am a much better person because he is in my life.
I tell him I love him every chance I get.
I love my mom.
We have a complicated relationship that we have been working on healing over many years. It’s amazing to me how similar we are and how much we show up for each other now that we are both crones.
She rents Lachlan’s Mother-in-Law Suite. We have a family commune of a kind in that house. I’m grateful for our wack-a-do, open-hearted, sometimes really hard to walk through, but now really lovely relationship.
It’s not Storge, Agape, Pragma, Philia, Eros, Ludus, or Philautia. And it’s definitely not Mania (obsessive love). Again, it’s something else. No words.
Beyond my mom, I love my family of origin—my dad, my step-mom, my sisters, and my brother and all of my aunts and uncles and cousins that have shaped my world. As complicated as they are, I love them. They are beautiful and damaged too. Some of them deal with the same demons I do. Some of them even handed those demons right over to me—and still I love them. Because I know what they are dealing with at a visceral level. I see them and they see me. That love is deep.
I tell them I love them every time I see them and every time I hang up the phone.
I love my friend groups
I love each person individually because of the amazing humans that they are! They are from many different walks of life and they contribute to the world in so many ways and they are also damaged in their own ways, just like I am. They lift me up when I need it and I hold them when they need it.
We know how to play together and we do it with aplomb! I’ve got friends I’ve known since high school and friends I’ve met in the past few days and I feel love for them. It’s a different kind of love for each individual, but I can’t call it anything other than love because I don’t have a word.
It’s bigger than ‘like.’
And I have to admit, I also don’t feel love
I don’t feel love with those people that try to stifle others. Those people that use their power to shut other people down. The ones that tell others how they are supposed to feel, behave, and believe.
Those people that use violence—physical or verbal—to control.
I have this voice in my head that says I should love them. It says I’m not a good person if I don’t find a way to love them. If I don’t see that they are struggling and damaged too and I don’t love them through it, then I’m the problem.
But you know what, fuck that! Those people do not get the gift of my love. Too bad. Make some effort on your end and make room for others to live their lives to the best of their abilities and then we can talk. That’s all the effort I’m going to give to that bullshit. I’m not fawning anymore just to make someone else feel comfortable. I’ll say it again: Fuck that!
I do know what love is.
I know how to give it and I know when to hold back. I know how it shows up in my life and I’m continuing to learn that lesson. I’m going to continue to see it and feel it. I’m going to continue to create opportunities for love.
So, yay for love! I’m glad I can say it and own it as frequently as I do now. I refuse to apologize for the abundance of love I carry or the frequency with which I express it. My former partner was wrong—not because he didn't understand love, but because he couldn't see that love isn't diminished by sharing it freely. Love multiplies.
Every "I love you" is a small act of rebellion against a world that tells us to be stingy with our hearts. I am done shrinking my capacity for love to fit someone else's comfort zone. I’m also not going to share it when it isn’t warranted. Love is earned.
I am going to continue to be someone who loves boldly, loves authentically, and loves without apology. And in a world that desperately needs more love, I consider that a superpower. We all deserve love. We just need to show it and say it out loud!
And maybe we need some more words.
Eros refers to physical love or sexual desire.
Philia is the type of love that involves friendship.
Agape is often defined as unconditional, sacrificial love.
Storge is the natural love that family members have for one another.
Mania is obsessive love - the kind a stalker might feel towards a victim.
Ludus is playful, noncommittal love—flirting, seduction, and casual sex fits here.
Pragma is love based on duty, obligation, or logic.
Philautia is self-love—how you view yourself, your body, and your mind.
I love you Mel! and I've been told I use that word too much too. I don't care. It spills out of my mouth like drool out of my dog's mouth when I'm eating peanuts in front of her. the world doesn't hear the word enough, so I do my tiny part to compensate for that.
I love you!