COLUMN: The Days of Love

From Allison Winn's "Allison Wonderland," Fall '95 From Allison Winn's "Allison Wonderland," Fall '95Valentine's Day. Cupid's arrow is shooting through the air. Couples are tenderly holding hands while strolling down the walk. Eyes linger on potential interests for just a moment longer. Love, or perhaps more aptly, lust, is in the air, as everyone is seized with the need to feel a little more romantic. I am not, as it might appear, the Scrooge of Valentine's Day. I am not anti-relationships, anti-men or anti-love. In fact, I would profess that next to Cupid himself, I am the world's strongest advocate of love. But Valentine's Day is so contrived, so forced, that it seems to be the antithesis of what love is really about. Why should we have an established day to acknowledge our love for others? In this sense, shouldn't everyday be Valentine's Day? Valentine's Day does, however, give me an opportunity to reflect on the meaning and role of love in my life. I do not know how many times I have fallen in love. There may have been times when I confused lust with love, and others when I tiptoed on the fine line dividing attachment and love, only to take a step back as soon as I saw myself falling. And as I grew and changed, so too did my comprehension of love. In sixth grade, love was perhaps the intense longing I had to romance Ricky Shroeder. By fifteen, it was the overwhelming feelings I had for "the one," the official man of my dreams, feelings so strong that I pity my parents and friends who had to accompany me on my roller-coaster ride of emotions for the year. By senior year in high school, I had all but forgotten "the one," and my feelings of love had settled into a middle point somewhere between extreme contentedness and passion. Yet, I am hesitant to recount my relationships in which I was sure of my love because like the fleeting passion I held for "the one," those feelings have now died. I realize that like marriage, love can fail, but I do not want to think that it can happen to me. Now at twenty-one, I really have no conception or actual definition of what love is or should be, I know only that is perhaps something that will remain intangible, yet attainable nonetheless. So I wait to be seized by a passion so intense that I will never question its immortality or limitations, a passion so enduring that I will never turn my head to look back at what I might have missed. Until I experience those feelings, I will forever be searching for the indefinable, or perhaps more appropriately, for a definition. I recognize that along with the intensity of those feelings will come a certain element of fear, as part of love is the sacrifice of yourself. Falling in love might possibly be the scariest phenomenon known to man. Wars have been waged, men have been killed, friendships have been lost, all in the name of love. There is an utter feeling of helplessness, a sense of loss of control over your own mind and body. Being in love requires complete trust in your lover, as part of yourself becomes ingrained in the other. Together, your two halves make a whole. And in this unity, you learn that love is not feeling important or worthy because someone else cares for you. It is making someone else feel important and worthy because you care for them. To be loved is easy, you only have to limit yourself to what your lover wishes of you. But to be loving means expanding, rather than limiting your possibilities. It means accepting your lover's faults when you know that they are wrong, and accepting your wrongs when you know that you are at fault. I believe that somewhere inside of us, we all want to fall in love. Finding that place is hard. Trusting the power and capacity of that space can prove to be a much more difficult task. Discovering that place with someone else may seem to be the most complex and tangled phenomenon of your life. But in allowing another person to step into that space, into your space, you are granted the gift of having another inside of you. And in return, you will be accepted into their world, their private space, where only they had previously gone. Perhaps I do have a definition of love after all. And perhaps Valentine's Day isn't as appalling as I originally stated. Before you down that box of Godiva chocloates or slip into that sexy new lingerie, (both of which, even I must confess, make today much more bearable), use today to explore that space inside yourself. Discover the covert corners and the hidden fears. Probe the mysteries and the potential. Until you understand and accept all of your limitations, all of your powers and everything in between, you will never be able to fully let someone in. Take the contrived emotions of today and put them to good use. Then maybe next year, you'll be able to celebrate Valentine's Day on more than just February 14th. There is never a day that you should not spread the wealth of your love.