Throughout my childhood and tween years, I couldn’t understand why people say, “I love you“ or “I love this TV show”. I couldn’t understand what their feelings were to compel them to say such influential words and have such undying commitments for things they “love”.

It wasn’t until I spent a few months at my cousins’ house that I learned what it meant to love, and how love has many versions—different definitions for everybody. For one, love must be natural, calm, and easygoing; yet, for another, love can be going through hardships and communicating throughout. love can be verbal, physical, or actions.

But still, what is love? Is it love the heart when it smiles seeing someone else is having a good time with their significant other? Is it love when a kitten is extremely cute? Is it love when I see my favorite mediterranean food? Or is it much deeper than that? Even though I discovered love has different meanings to everybody, I also found out I was still wrong about love. The embodiment of love shouldn’t even have a question to begin with. The mere questioning of what love is, is where the wrong began. Because there are no questions of love, and obviously, love is love. Love is a universal language everything shares regardless of what it is; it holds no bounds.

Spending those months at my cousins’ taught me my own interpretation of what love is and how to love—in my own way; the way fit for me and for my personal life. For me, I felt “love” when I was able to relax, be comfortable, and rest my body without stress.

Generally however, when we begin to feel comfortability and senses of security with different things, big, small, big deal, small deal, amazing, or bad, and when we begin to appreciate everything in our lives regardless of its shape and form, life sets its own form with boundless energy. In turn, life becomes happier and freer, as life becomes its own being that takes you on its wings to see your prospects.

Love can also be seen through what we allowed life to give us—the beauty of our world and communities, to name a few. The gifts of life can give us an “out”, that route, to continue each step with determination and motivation. They can show us how things are and how things can be done; with our minds and bodies innately reacting to day-to-day, we discover new behaviors, new motivations, new artistry, new ideas, and a new step forward.

In the end, I’ve discovered that pursuing genuine and authentic fun and satisfaction, through unapologetically living the life we want for ourselves, will eventually lead us to discover what our own definitions of love is. The paths are bleak and blurry from a far, and there is no use in worrying about what’s ahead; only living in the here and now will we find solace in not only every step of the way, but as well as what’s waiting for us near the end. Love holds no form, no shape, and no dictation; it’s up to our individual selves to discover what we want our own version of love to be or look like, through our precious lives.