2. Love
Love. A word with so many different meanings that the word itself becomes meaningless.
If you asked a three-year-old, perhaps she would proclaim that love was the affection and attraction that she felt towards her teddy bear, the one that would be ripped away from her when it grew old.
To a six-year-old, perhaps love was her newfound affection for the new puppy she would watch age and die.
For an eight-year-old, perhaps love was the deep friendship she had with her childhood playmate, the playmate that would leave her within months, despite how certain she was that their friendship was forever.
Or for a thirteen-year-old, perhaps love was the startling feeling she felt for her first crush, the crush that she would no longer care about in two months.
Perhaps, to a fifteen-year-old, love was the messy emotion she felt for her first boyfriend, the first person who would mess with her head, jumble her emotions, and exit her life.
A twenty-year-old might describe love as the lust she felt towards her college-age boyfriend, who would leave her behind without a second thought.
Maybe for a thirty-year-old, love was the feeling of attraction she felt towards her first husband, the one who wouldn't hesitate to leave her life as soon as times became hard.
A new mother would describe love as the emotion that shone through her eyes as she looked at her sweet, innocent, newborn child- the same child that would glare at her with anger, annoyance, contempt, and hate, sixteen years later.
A grandmother might find love to be the deep affection she felt towards her new grandchild- the grandchild that her daughter had conceived too young and with the wrong man.
Perhaps love, being the complicated, broad word that it has become, means each and every one of those. The many definitions of the word make it such that the words "I love you" should hold little meaning. And yet, every day- every hour- every minute, a girl is ecstatic that someone finally spoke those words to her. She feels as though nothing can hurt her, when she is safe within the protective glass bubble of those three words.
But when the one who uttered that magical phrase is gone, the glass bubble shatters. The shards pierce her skin and she is left wounded.
And yet, she loves again and again throughout her life. Ignoring the easy way out of her pain, she summons her courage and allows herself to love again.
