Love is glorious and worth celebrating

WE talk so much about romantic love, and I am one of the worst culprits, but romantic love can come and go. There are so many other kinds and the greatest loves of our lives are rarely romantic.

My baby girl turned 19 on Friday and she is one of the greatest loves of my life. I remember the first time I felt her kick, they call it the Quickening. I didn’t know she was a she, but I loved her before I met her and ever since I have loved her a little more every day. Yet I had been scared of having a second baby because I loved the first one so much. He too I loved before I met him, he too I have loved a little more every day.

I love my parents, I love my brothers. I love their wives. I love my in-laws. I love my nephews and nieces. Not because I have to because you don’t have to. There are no guarantees that you will get a good deal with family, but I did. And I love them all.

I love my friends. Some I see often, some I see rarely, but still every meeting feels just like yesterday. Whether it’s big, deep chats or laughing your ass off at something ridiculous, good times or bad, you need support, they do or no one does, friendships are treasures.

I also love the dog and his never-ending delight when he sees me. I love chocolate, movies, the colour red, the feeling you get after working out, the feeling of sun on my back and the tiddly feeling of two glasses of something fizzy on an empty stomach.

You can’t buy love or fake it, it just is. And maybe romantic love makes us feel more special, you’re someone’s favourite person and they’re yours, but it is a relatively small portion of all the love we give and are given. Love is glorious and worth celebrating, all love.