What is love? (Happy Day to Love You Day)

With today being Valentine’s Day, I think it’s important to stop and examine just what love is.

Matt and I just returned from a seven-day trip to Hawaii to visit a friend (and her husband) whom I have loved for over 20 years. TWENTY YEARS! Diedre and I met in New York doing an all-girl sketch comedy show called Powder Puff. It was wacko and fun and we’ve been friends ever since.

These days, at 51, I’m starting to feel like…yowza. I have lived. I have really lived. And when you look into the eyes of a friend who has known you since “that time you (fill in the blank)” it makes you think about what’s important in life.

Sidebar: I just ran to my hope chest where I keep my journals. I thought, “Ooh, let me see if I can find my journal from February 14, 2002 and see what was going on.” I started at October 2001 and had to stop reading. Page after page is the same theme but with a different setting and characters. Love and the lack thereof. I spent so much time being upset about not getting love from guys. So much time. It’s gross. But…but! Life is a journey and I needed to live through that stuff to get to where I am today. (Right?! Ugh.)

So, you thirty-year olds and somewhere in-betweens, I offer you this:

I wish twenty years ago, when I was two years into living in New York, was an afraid, broke actor suffering from stress eczema who felt like shit on Valentine’s Day, I wish I had spent the day thinking about what love is…instead.

Love is kindness.

Love is finding beauty in the simple things.

Love is gratitude.

Love is turning inward to see what’s there…and what’s not.

Love is enjoying the people, places and things around you.

Love is doing what you love.

Love is.

Now, before we go, let’s take a moment to look at the obvious. Yes, I am married now. I have two dogs and a house. I live near family and my bank account is not overdrawn. Circumstances can make it hard to find love. Circumstances also make it easy. We just need to take a breather to allow it to be.

I wish you luck. I wish you love.

Happy Day to Love You Day.