I was in love once. Or, at least I thought was at the time. I chose to leave it unrequited out of fear and the circumstances surrounding it. I was unprepared for the consequences and trials that it carried.
As for my definition of love, well, it's something I was never able to put into words. I looked at what others thought it was and I was taken by surprise at the words they used. Words like "selfless" and "need," words I refused. To me, to love is to see in someone one who ascends to the standard to which you hold yourself. To rejoice in the knowledge that there is someone like you and to admire them for it. Love is the most selfish of all emotions, the catalyst through which all others are made more potent.
I was unable to articulate that for some time. I was so unsure of the words that I was afraid to try to speak them.
It was later that I discovered that very definition. Someone years before had said what I felt I was incapable of saying:
"Love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem, a response to one's own values in the person of another. One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one's own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns, and derives from love."
That someone was Ayn Rand.
