something I'll probably touch upon often.

I don’t know what love is.

Or at least I’ve never been able to define it. I’ve tried though. Like back in college, when I thought I knew everything about everything, I thought I’d crafted my own interpretation of love and no one could tell me any different. Silly me. I had no idea. I hadn’t even fully experienced it yet. Just bits and pieces. Or sometimes, I was totally wrong about it. If only I'd known back then that it wasn't that he didn't love me, it was just me misreading him, then maybe it wouldn't have hurt so much.

I have a dear friend who once told me that he wasn’t sure that he knew what love was and how to put it into words, but he knew the feeling. A distinct, sometimes overwhelming and all-at-once troubling feeling that you’ve gotten into something that’s out of your hands, and you NEED to be with that person. It’s not like just missing them when they’re away…but it’s an urgency to see them. He didn’t use these exact words of course. I’m embellishing, but that's pretty much the crux.

Maybe that’s just one phase of love, or one layer. But again, what do I know? I’m not here, writing this out, to define it. For all I know, I may never know the true meaning. But I keep my eyes open for bits and pieces of what it means TO ME, and today I got just that. So, just for today, my meaning is this:

When the farewell doesn’t end at the “goodbye” kiss. It continues as the lovers’ eyes follow each other up the escalator and through the door, until one or the other disappears. Then, there’s that knowing smile that they will think of you all day, the same way that you are thinking off them all day, wanting the hours to rush by so that you can see them again.

I hate it when I get sappy, and I have no cynicism to counter it. But I’ve been wanting to get that out all day.