love actually is, all around.

i've been giving a lot of thought to love lately. specifically how our concept of love changes as we go through life.

when i was little i loved joey mcintyre and kermit the frog when he dressed up as michael jackson in the bad video.

in grade eight, i loved scott jackson.

when i was sixteen i loved a tanned shouldered boy with long dark hair who never wore shoes, drove a brown pick up truck, and listened to led zeppelin.

for five years i loved my highschool boyfriend, duane rushton.

all of these early loves had something in common. the love i felt for them was very personal, highly analyzed and communicated in very boastful ways. like issuing a statement. like announcing i'd achieved something. like missing some sort of point.

i loved cameron but really more as a friend. i loved matt, but we barely knew each other.

and then i loved jeremy.

love is poems and pancakes and saying vows to each other in fancy clothing but it's also real and present and starting and ending each day looking at each other and not being able to imagine that the world, your world, could be any other way.

love isn't only in the clouds, you see. it's doing jeremy's laundry, it's folding his dress shirts, it's making his tea with just the right amount of milk. it's looking around at our house, the home that we've made, and having shared stories for everything in it.

it's knowing that when i ask him to be somewhere, he always will be.

there are so many different kinds of love in the world. love for a book, love for a song, love for franks hot sauce on just about everything. love for the ocean and it's strong, primal allure.

but all those loves, through the lens of the love i share with jeremy, are amplified, multiplied, boost-i-fied in the incredible way love is when sharing it with that one person who understands you completely.

aren't we all such lucky ducks? aren't we all just slaves to love.