More on Love

I want to start by first stating a very clear thought: I do not know the answers! Ok.. Having made the disclaimer, I would like to pose this question: what is love? More specifically, what is loving another? I am doing dishes while wearing purple rubber gloves to protect my hands from chlorine-polluted water and the thought just keeps nagging me. What does it mean to love someone? Please follow me here: we are all guilty of saying that we miss person X, Y, or Z. We miss the person. Is that really what we miss? The person with his moods and principles, his physical and emotional needs, his frustrations, his baggage carried since birth? I am not that certain. What that one thought was nagging me about was that we miss a feeling, a certain emotion, that was invoked by the presence of another. We might be missing that, not the actual human. If that is so, then what is loving another? Can we love another simply for what he/she is regardless of how we may feel around him? Regardless of what the other provides us with, be it money, intellectual stimulation, comfort, butterflies in the stomach and shaky knees. Can we see the person? I mean, really see. And if we can see one, can we see many? And if we see many, can we love many? And if we love many, in what way does it show? What type of love is it? And what does ultimate love look like? And another great question for me is how can we see when we're so caught up in our minds, our own agendas, our own need to be seen and loved and validated and comforted... You get the point. And if these aren't enough of a brain-teaser, I am adding one more amorphous piece to the growing puzzle, which is this: how does romantic love fit into all of this?

Your thoughts?