May 21, 2014 5 min read

What is love? We’ve been looking at love in the last two columns. Our Adolescent Advisory Board members gifted me with their perspectives on love. Enjoy!

Love is when you can’t live without it. Love for a person is when you can put up with their crap and your feelings for them don’t change. You can tell that love is real when you can’t even imagine your life without them.

Cassie Clayton: Love is a feeling enjoyed by almost everyone. I believe love still exists, it is just hard to find because people are always worried about what others may think. Mostly teenagers are too worried about having sex with one another all the time, and that’s because they think it’s cool.

Shelby Dague: I believe you know that you love someone when you are more than willing to risk your life for the well-being of theirs. To love someone is to put 100 percent of your trust into their hands. When you love someone, you aren’t afraid to share ideas, opinions or feelings because you know that their response will be one that is filled with support and empowerment.

Devin J. Gordon: Love is something you feel when you find the right person. You can feel it in your heart.

Serena Green: Love is hard to explain. It’s a feeling that isn’t really just ONE thing. Love can be small, fluttering and soft, something only you know and feel. But, love can also be passionate, loud and clear as daylight. It can be confusing and it can try your patience, but love is beautiful.

Caleb Harrington: Love is what drives human beings every single day. Whether it is love of religion, a hobby, or people around you, without love one cannot truly live life to the fullest. Love is not something you can control. It just hits you. Love ultimately is what Jesus Christ taught us. You can do something great, but without love you are bankrupt.

Cassidy Hiles: Love is a feeling that is in your heart. You can’t see it. You can only feel it. You know when love is real when you realize that without that thing or person your life wouldn’t be the same. You can love food, video games, friends or anything you can think of, but true love can only be felt towards a person. Loving friends and family is different than loving an object. When someone leaves you and your heart aches from it, you know that the love is real.

Marissa Johnson: Love is being able to be happy and comfortable with each other.

Erica Martin: Love is being able to look past flaws because you can’t really see them. You see every pimple, every blemish, every “extra roll,” every scar and you still give him/her every ounce of your heart. You tell them you love them in the little things you say: “Be careful,” “Watch your step,” “How are you?” Love is being completely and utterly weird, sticking your tongues out, making faces and still being able to look at each other the same way. Love is finding that one person you can release a whole new universe to and they’ll do the same.

Taylor Myers: You know you’re in love when you can be yourself around the other person and you don’t have to worry about anything else. You don’t have to be nervous any more. When silence isn’t awkward.

Jacqueline Ratzlaff: Love is when you will do anything for someone without expecting or wanting anything in return. It’s about unconditionally caring about an individual no matter the situation. Love is about communication and trust, in certain situations forgiveness is key. Love is being able to be around someone constantly and share happiness with them, to be able to talk about anything and everything and trusting that person will not tell anyone. Love is comforting each other when they’re down and being there for them when they need you. But everyone’s experience of love can be different.

Rachel Ritzer: Love is when you put another’s needs before yourself. Love is when you’re both happy being around each other. Love is a feeling you can’t explain.

Patience Thallhofer: Love is when you literally can’t stop thinking about that person. When you would do anything and everything you possibly can for them, no matter the situation or how much they’ve hurt you in the past. You put up with their crap and care for them unconditionally. There’s so much more to love, but it’s so hard to articulate your feelings into words.

Andy Vahaly: Love is something you feel when you’ve met the person you’re going to be spending the rest of your life with.

Alex Varley: Love is when someone else’s happiness is more important than your own. You just know you’re in love when all you want to do is be with that special person.

Tyler Ulens: Love is a commitment to a person you find special. It is not just a feeing, it is a promise.

Gary William White: I think love can be expressed and showed in many ways, but to me love is that feeling you get inside, the tingling. And that feeling that you can’t breathe around a person.