Love, a four letter word. Love is affection. Love is fear. Love is uncertainty. Love is impossible. Love is beautiful. Love can be so many things; but in the end, love is nothing but love.

I remember learning about love in elementary school. I learned that red and pink is a symbolic color of love. So I drew pink and red hearts around my stick-figure family. I learned that love is having affection. So I drew my family together holding hands. On Valentine's Day, the classroom would be filled with every shade of pink and red. We would bring desserts to class and everyone would be filled with endless amount of joy. This is what I was taught about love.

As I grew older I learned that love is more than what I was taught it to be. I saw countries at war for love. For the love that they have for their religion and freedom. I saw people die for love. I saw the ugly part of love, but I also saw the beauty of it. I grew to love more things than just people. I learned to love music and the structure within it. I began to fall in love with the way waves always rush up onto the shore, just to be sent back into the sea. I learned to love shadow, and how it can bring so much darkness, but without that darkness, there would be no light. I learned that love can not be taught, it is learned through stories, experiences, and from ourselves.

The importance of love and for people to embrace it seems to be fading. I see my friends push away love because they are scared. They have seen the monsters that love can create. Their parents are divorced and the scars it's tattooed onto them are like fresh wounds. The remembrance of love puts salt onto those wounds. What I say to those friends, and if you are one of them; don't fight it. If you love someone, let them know. And when you find love, don't give up. If this love is the love you have for a person or a passion. Just like everything else worth having, you have to fight for it. Even when the odds aren't in your favor. Love is the strongest thing humans have.

Notice love when it is due. Without recognition, love can and will go unnoticed. The cashier at Walmart is working two jobs to pay for her child's school. Her little boy wants to be a scientist, and she loves her future scientist. I remember once sitting at the train station, an old man looking up at some dusty windows. He looked at them with such awe. I looked around wondering if anybody else was seeing this man. Everyone was plugged into their devices. I started to wonder, when was the last time anybody looked up at those windows. He looked to the windows, then to the ground. The light from the windows was reflecting a rainbow onto the carpet. I could just tell by the way his head hung, his neck crooked, looking at the rainbow, he loved the light.

I want people to stop being afraid to love and to love more. To not push it away, but to embrace it. When you find love, to carry it with kindness. I can't think of a scarier world than a world without love. So spread it, notice it, and take care of it. Love, a beautiful and powerful word.