What Is Love? Baby Don't Hurt Me

February 14th, 2011, a mountain was formed.  Not a mountain made from plate tech tonics, blasting volcanoes, earthquakes, but more so a mountain of valentines that piled onto my desk at school. It was an overwhelming feeling.  I will be swimming in chocolate for a while.  People all have their opinions of this day we call Valentines but love is love no matter the form.  I am all about a celebration, and chocolate to boot? I'm there!  

So to follow are my musings on love in regards to this holiday (mostly pertaining to the romantic type): One of my favorite things about life is the opportunity to love and love well.  Surrounded by family, friends, students, my man, and God, nothing could be better.   One of the reasons I think that people get so disillusioned by this holiday of love is because of the anticipation and expectations.  We expect a significant other to always fill this void in us and spend the remainder of our lives on cloud nine.  We recall the people in our life we have loved which resulted in disappointment.  Love is complex but I tend to think that as we continue to know and love, the love evolves to something much deeper.   The challenge of finding love of such caliber requires relinquishing our expectations of what love is all together in our humanness.  The most beautiful rocks after all are the result of much heat and pressure, wear and tear much like our closest relationships endure. 

St. Augustine once wrote "Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two." 

Love is necessary.  Surround yourself with it and seek a Love that is higher.  A Love that never fails.  Check this song out: paints a beautiful picture of Love.

And to conclude:  a Valentines joke.  Y'all know I love my cheese!

Q: What did the Valentine's Day joke say to the stamp?

A: Stick to me and we'll go places!

That, and many other reasons are why I teach 2nd grade...