What Is Love?

I have had many times over the past month where I’ve held my newborn son and been in awe at the little human he is. While he primarily eats and sleeps now, I look at him and wonder what our future will hold. And in all of those wonderings, the emotions present are always joy and happiness.

But then I look at my toddler son, and I remember thinking the same exact thing when he was a newborn. But as we have navigated having a very strong-willed toddler, not all of our moments together are happy and joyful. There’s been anger, exhaustion, overwhelm, irritation, and annoyance—emotions I can’t imagine feeling towards my youngest as I hold his sweet, little body and rock him to sleep.

And when I initially reflected on this it made me sad. I wondered how I could work to only have those happy and joyful moments together with my oldest that I imagined having with him when he was little.

But then, I reminded myself that the absence of those tougher emotions wouldn’t mean I love him any more than I do now. In fact, you could argue it means I love him less.

Yes, the joyful moments I have with my oldest are wonderful. They are intoxicating, and I always work to tuck them away in my back pocket to come back to, especially in the harder moments of parenting. But, part of loving another human means that there will also be anger, sadness, annoyance, frustration, and more.

What makes it love is that I work through those emotions. I’m there in them and on the other side of them, too, willing to reflect, own my part in them, and work to address my own patterns that contribute to repeated arguments and misunderstandings. Love is being willing to let my oldest know his emotions aren’t too much and I’m willing to sit with him as he is angry at me and hear what he has to say. Love is setting appropriate boundaries and allowing my son to express how those boundaries make him feel. Love is picking him up and hugging him, letting him know that we can sit through and experience any emotion together and I’ll be there to hold him after it all.

Maybe you aren’t a parent, but this applies to all relationships. Perhaps you are coming down from the honeymoon phase with a partner and you wonder how you could have come from the heightened love and infatuation to feelings like annoyance and disappointment. The presence of these feelings doesn’t mean you love them any less. This is where you can show just how much you love them, by sitting with these emotions and working through them with your partner.

I can’t say I’ll ever hold my youngest son and willingly imagine the arguments and disagreements we will have. But, I will continue to look at my oldest and remind myself that loving him doesn’t mean experiencing only joy and happiness, rather it means being willing to stay by him as we inevitably experience the whole spectrum of emotions and ensuring that I’m still there on the other side of whatever comes our way.