What's Your Recipe?

Complete trust. Is it when you can’t live without someone?

Unconditional caring and support. Is it when someone comes into your life and wakes you up?

Absolute comfort. Is it when you would do anything for somebody?

Passion.  A reason to live. A supreme desire to be with somebody.

Oneness. When your conscience can clearly communicate with theirs.

These ideals all describe one of the most sought after experiences in the world: love.

These descriptions of love are not love itself though.

“Being able to tell somebody anything” is simply being comfortable to be open with another person.

Respect is an entity in itself. You can respect somebody without loving them, but can you love a person without respecting them?

When most students are asked the question, “What is love to you?” they reply with similar definitions that include words like trust, friendship, patience, and intimacy.

However, we believe these are just ingredients to the bigger pie.

Maybe it’s like a calzone, with all the cheese, sauce, and Italian meats representing certainty, happiness, and dependability. The smell of the baking bread is like the initial physical attraction, the “love at first sight” mentality.

And when the heavenly mist fades in a successful relationship, we accept the other person for what they really are—just as flawed as we are.

“Love cherishes imperfection. It does not ridicule it,” Courtney Thomas, Planet Blacksburg news editor, said. “Love is smiling when they steal the covers, and not wanting to steal them back.”

Love means to have a sense of belonging according to Peter Kalwei, a student at Truman State University in Missouri.
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“Love is knowing you are wanted or needed by somebody. It’s always having a place, not necessarily a physical place. No matter what, you fit in. It’s comfortable,” Kalwei said.

Everyone has their own definition of love, but how do you define something so esoteric? Experience defines each person’s idea of love.

“Love is something that doesn’t exist until it’s experienced, then it becomes essential to survival,” Neal Turnage, Planet Blacksburg sports editor, said.

But how do we know when we have experienced true love?

Each calzone will taste a little different as each person adds their own ingredients, or components of love.

“Love is more than emotion to me,” Megan Abernathy, Radford University senior, said. “Love is a process of thought, a feeling, an understanding, a passion, an enlightenment almost. It changes your thoughts, and actions in such a way that it evolves you.”

The challenge in love is choosing the right ingredients and making sure you use the right amount. Some will match up and others won’t, but the end result should taste good to everybody.

Everyone has their own definition, or recipe, of love.  Don’t hesitate to tell those people in your life that fit your definition that you do love them.  Also, be sure to let yourself be loved.