On the Unknown.

Beware, this may be too much of a stereotypical white girl post for anyone's good, but hear me out.

You've heard the songs. They're the songs that explain how much one person loves another and the gestures that accompany it. Songs explaining the hope for something greater. A poet lyric that tries to summarize how and why you love someone.

But on the other hand, the songs that resonate more are the songs that explain of heartbreak. They tell you of the love they had and lost. A love poetic and perfect deserving of a movie. A breakup so catastrophic that Taylor Swift couldn't write an appropriate album to summarize it.

The theme running along this is that we know what love is. The idea that we can write a description of what love is, it's physical qualities, the gestures that describe it, a hopeful attempt at explaining the emotions and the feelings that come along with it. It serves as a guide for what to feel before you say those three words.

I. Love. You.

When we're young, we're told that one day, when you fall in love, you'll just know. Unfortunately, in our naivete, we think we know about 712 different times. Frank Turner said that he's meant the words each time he's said it, but it never works out.

And that's the sad reality of love, is that as beautiful as it is, it often doesn't work out. It makes you whole, and destroys you down to the tiniest microcosm of your soul. All because each time, we think we know what love is, and how it feels. We think we know what that person meant to us and what love felt like.

Until we lose someone we love, and we break in two. And we end the day thinking that we will never love again.

Yet I've come to consider that we only know what love is after we lose someone. There's some long story about how to fall in love, you must first fall in love with this series of people and fail and have your heart broken. I think the story is true, that a series of heartbreaks are what lead you to your ultimate happiness. But I don't think you fall in love with each person. I think you fall in love with the idea and you cling to it.

I thought I knew what love was, once upon a time. I thought it was what I felt and what kept me glued to a place in time. And now that I've grown up, I realized I didn't have the slightest clue. And I'm not saying I know the answer know, but I think it's a lot closer than what it was.

I don't think love is the thing found in songs. It's not the cute pictures. It's not the Facebook status. It's not what anyone ever told us it would be.

Love is that constant stupid grin on your face, all because of the other person. Love is laughing so hard you cry. Love is the little surprises, like post it notes in your lunch box. Love is waking up next to someone and knowing where you belong. Love is the safety of a hug. Love is spending your nights in reading next to each other, instead of going to the bar to flaunt your happiness. Love is never being bored by looking into someone else's eyes. Love is the thing that moves you to your highest highs and lowest lows. Love just is.

Love is a word that expresses an emotion that has so many descriptions that you could write a doctoral dissertation and not even be close to done.

Like I said, I'm not sure I know the answer, but I know a lot more than I thought I used to, and I would like to think I'm getting close to the answer.