Entry 11: The Meaning of Love

Last week I went to the Olivia Dean concert in Minneapolis and it was amazing!! She is just as gorgeous in person and sounds even better live. We had so much fun and the person who had even more fun than us was Olivia Dean herself. The arena was full of positivity, excitement, girlhood, joy, and love. She performed all of her new album The Art of Loving, about half of her album Messy and some other songs. It was 2 hours of pure bliss. 

Olivia spoke about how she wanted to write an album about love and the different types of love. Before a couple songs, she explained their meaning. For example, So Easy To Fall In Love is about loving yourself, I’ve Seen It is about love and how it’s present in her life, and Dive is about just going for it and diving into your feelings. Her explanation of these songs and love in general made me really think about how I view love. She has such an elegant way of explaining that I don’t think I’ll be able to portray it in the same way, but I’ll give it a try. 

When I think of love, I view it in 3 different types of relationships: friends, family, and romance. These 3 have overlap, but I think they are overall so different from each other. Which is funny because you would still describe each of these relationships as “love”. That’s what I love about love, it’s so big and all encompassing. 

Friend Relationships

This in my opinion is the easiest and most beautiful form of love. Your friends are people who choose to stay in your life simply because they love you. We don’t owe each other anything, we aren’t related, we just chose to form a relationship. I am so thankful to have so many examples of this in my life. Every single one of my friends makes me feel seen, loved, chosen, heard and accepted. 

This form of love feels unconditional even though it doesn’t “have” to be like familial and romantic relationships. The times when I feel the most loved by my friends is when we are all together, chatting, laughing, and just genuinely enjoying our presence. A couple years ago, my college friends visited me for my birthday and met all of my Charlotte friends. I had a pregame and my apartment was full of some of the people I loved most in this world. My friend Katie said to me that I had been smiling the entire night and I told her it was because I was just so happy. How lucky am I to have friends that are willing to hop on a plane to visit me? How lucky am I to have friends from different stages of life? 

My longest friendship is 23 years. Cassidy and I were toddlers together, went through all 12 years of school together, college, and now post grad. We tell each other everything and I am confident that we will have a friendship that lasts our entire lives. Cassidy was my first example of friendship love and how cool is it that it started at the age of 3.

I have learned so many lessons from my friends and I genuinely believe they are the reason I am who I am. They introduced me to some of my favorite foods, favorite music, and have been such good examples of who I want to be. This kind of love is so easy. It only brings me joy. Your friends are the greatest example of how you should be loved by others in your life. 

Family Relationships

This is the first kind of love we all get to experience. As babies, our parents are the first faces we see and it’s their loving smile looking down on you. Their love for you started the second they learned that you even existed. This form of love starts with your parents but then grows and expands with your siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc. There are endless amounts of people who have a spot in their heart for you. 

This love is unconditional and automatic. You don’t have to learn how to love your family, it’s just there. It’s unconditional in the sense where although you probably really pissed off your mom one day, she still has to love you because you’re her kid. Family is family. I’m grateful that I have healthy family relationships and love all of them, but I know my experience isn’t the same for everyone. There are plenty of people in this world that do not have these kinds of relationships with their family. That is where I think love gets tricky and feels less consuming. 

It’s difficult because you could have an experience where your dad is not present in your life and never has been. Doesn’t matter the reasoning but I think there is always a part of you that thinks love could be there. It might be hidden and tucked away, but it’s still there. I think it’s really hard to completely shut off love for someone you once felt it for. Is it necessary in some cases? Absolutely, mostly in romantic relationships. But when it comes to family, I think that’s a type of love that’ll never go away because of its unconditional aspect. 

I understand cutting off a family member. It’s clearly not an easy decision and it took a lot of things to get to that point. I think the feeling you once had for them just turns into something else. Maybe it’s not love and it’s just indifference. But as Olivia Dean said, “Love’s never wasted when it’s shared”. Love is never a waste, even if you don’t have it for that person anymore. 

Family love I think is more difficult because there are a lot more instances of “well, they’re my (fill in the family member), I have to love them”. Trust me, I have had plenty of those moments. But I also know that they will always be there for me at the end of the day and they are the first people to have ever loved me. That I think is something special. They were the people who celebrated every single milestone, even if you don’t remember it. They are part of every memory, story, and the first example of love you felt.

Romantic Relationships

Now, how can I write about this when I have never been in love? It’s because I've seen so many examples of what it should and should NOT look like. This is the most complicated, but most exciting form of love. 

Romantic love is something that we see in the movies and read in books. Authors have a way of writing the most epic love stories that many strive to have. People love to tease women about reading romance novels because they think they’re silly or whatever. In reality, women are reading about relationships that they yearn for. You know the phrase “written by a woman”? Yeah that just means that character is actually a respectful and kind man that has good intentions and treats their spouse how they should be treated. AKA, the bare minimum. 

In my opinion, this should be the easiest form of love but it often becomes the most complicated. I’m lucky and have parents that have been married for 32 years and nobody in my family has been divorced. But in today’s day in age, this is incredibly rare. Divorce is becoming more and more common and that is for multiple reasons. Number 1 being women no longer have to rely on a man to survive and we are the most independent generation in women’s history so we can actually divorce a man and be fine. But number 2 is I think a lot of people settled while they were dating their spouse and after how many years of marriage, had enough. 

We make this form of love so complicated because we feel this pressure to make it work. The older we get the more we think “well who knows how many more chances I’ll have, I just have to make this work”. This isn’t true! Love is endless and we have so many opportunities with it! We accept poor behavior and say “well they love me”! Love isn’t always enough and that’s okay. This pressure comes from the “Looming Timeline” and even ourselves. Nobody puts pressure on my life except for myself. 

I think romantic love should be light and easy. This kind of love should make you feel like your best self and so full of joy. You should feel empowered, confident, light, and at ease. I don’t think this should cause you pain or anxiety. It shouldn’t make you question your worth, your beauty, or anything about yourself. Being in love means you accept that person for everything they are and aren’t. It shouldn’t be trying to change them to be the person you want them to be. It shouldn’t make you question, doubt, or feel less than. If you’re loving the right person then you just know. This might be naive, but I really do think it’s as simple as that. It feels calm, peaceful, easy, and just right. We make it so much more complicated than we need to and I think a lot of that has to do with our new dating culture. Online dating has shown us the “endless options” that exist and makes us question if there is someone better out there. 

If you’re in love with the person who is right for you, you don’t question if there is someone better. You don’t question if it is the right path for you. You just know. 

Overall, I think love should be easy and light. Love is kind. Love is beautiful. Love can also be scary, but it’s the good kind of scary. Love makes you the best version of yourself. Love makes you feel full, accepted, and seen. We are so lucky that we get to experience different kinds of love. I love my friends and family so incredibly much that I can’t even imagine loving someone more than them. But I know that is out there. Your heart only grows more and more when you have people you love in your life. 

I think Olivia Dean does a much better job than me at explaining love. Go listen to all of her music because it is genuinely so good. I hope you enjoyed how I view love. Go remind the people that you love, that you love them.

Sincerely, 

Courtney