According to The Love Languages, for me, love is acts of service, physical touch, and quality time. For you, my DH, it is physical touch, quality time, and words of affirmation. Basically, I get the better end of this deal because you do nice stuff for me and all I have to do is appreciate it!
Now I have “The Rose” stuck in my head. It’s a river! A hunger! A flower! Such a negative song. Our love is not at all depressing. Our love fills rather than enervates. It encourages instead of dispirits. Our love knows how to dance, even if maybe we don’t.*
Our love is all the good feelings put together. Love with you is exciting and joyous, but also comforting and soothing. You can control my heart-rate with a touch.
When I think of our love, I often think of the Fantasticks. I saw the musical as a high school student when we were having a rough spot in our relationship, or maybe had just gotten back together, and it really spoke to me. You are love, better far than a metaphor could ever ever be. It still speaks to me, because our love has really gone from that teenage romance, which didn’t feel superficial at the time, but perhaps was, to a more mature view. Love is experiencing the world with you, even when you’re not physically there. Time together, while gaining trust, communication skills, and understanding, has removed the tempestuous potential negatives of young love and replaced them with with closeness, and the knowledge that you are there and you will be my anchor and the rock in my foundation. Love is being with you and wanting you to be happy and wanting to see how you experience the world. Wanting to share in our experiences.
You are love, but also, love is you.** “All my wildest dreams, multiplied by two.”
What is love to you?
*Refraining from a dirty joke here.
**Trying very hard not to spoil this sweet sentiment with a Yakoff Smirnoff reference. Which is another thing I never would have experienced had your grandmother not given us a VHS tape.
Grumpy Rumblings (of the formerly untenured) 
June 17, 2022 at 9:13 am
I think love is commitment and follow-through on the good. It’s frequent and consistent directed thoughtfulness in large ways and small. It’s participatory. It’s joy-seeking, comfort-encouraging, and support in struggle. Or even just easing a path that wasn’t hard, but it’s nice for it to be easier. It’s seeing the good in the people you care about and highlighting it to yourself and to them. It’s a state of mind, a spirit.
I wish I remembered where I read it, because I’m missing the details, but– my mind is going to the time in history when they were trying to scientifically determine the weight of fire. The experiments were unsuccessful because fire is energy, not matter. I think that love is similar. I don’t think it can be weighed by love languages things– it can be fueled by them, but the fuel is not the fire.
June 17, 2022 at 9:39 am
Awww. That’s a very sweet analogy (love as fire).
June 18, 2022 at 11:42 am
Awwww! This is so sweet!!! In addition to all of the things you listed that love is for you & your DH, love for us is also enormous respect for each other’s personal & professional diligence, expertise, and excellence, and for each other’s moral compass.
June 18, 2022 at 12:22 pm
Absolutely!
June 19, 2022 at 1:43 pm
I love that you have a wonderfully loving and respectful relationship. I hope for this for all folks who choose to be in a relationship.
June 19, 2022 at 5:37 pm
Me too!
June 19, 2022 at 5:38 pm
I forgot to mention– we have now been married half of our lives(!)