What we talk about when we talk about love

In my Liberal Arts class regarding short stories of American lives, we read a story by Raymond Carver called, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love." It has been by far one of my favorite stories filled with real, raw emotion about a topic and experience that all human beings long for: love.

This story made me want to cry, scream and chime in with the characters. I liked it, because the main character, Mel, raises several tough questions about love to his wife and another couple (friends) and throughout the story tries to wrap his head around love and define it. I highly recommend reading this.

Here's a short passage from the story:

"What do any of us really know about love?" Mel said. 


"It seems to me we're just beginners at love. We say we love each other and we do, I don't doubt it. I love Terri (his wife) and Terri loves me, and you guys love each other too. You know the kind of love I'm talking about now. Physical love, that impulse that drives you to someone special as well as love of the other person's being, his or her essence, as it were. Carnal love and, well, call it sentimental love, the day-to-day caring about the other person. But sometimes I have a hard time accounting for the fact that I must have loved my first wife too. But I did, I know I did. So I suppose I am like Terri in that regard. Terri and Ed (Terri's ex-husband)."


He thought about it and then went on.


"There was a time when I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself. But now I hate her guts. I do. How do you explain that? What happened to that love? What happened to it, is what I'd like to know. I wish I someone could tell me. Then there's Ed. Okay, we're back to Ed. He loves Terri so much he tried to kill her and he winds up killing himself." 


Mel stopped talking and swallowed his glass. 


"You guys have been together eighteen months and you love each other. It shows all over you. You glow with it. But you both loved other people before you met each other. You've both been married before, just like us. And you probably loved other people before that too, even. Terri and I have been together for five years, been married for four. And the terrible thing, the terrible thing is, but the good thing too, the saving grace you might say, is that if something happened to us - excuse me for saying this - but if something happened to one of us tomorrow I think the other one, the other person, would grieve for awhile, you know, but then the surviving party would go out and love again, have someone else soon enough. All this, all of this love we're talking about, it would just be a memory. Maybe not even a memory. Am I wrong? Am I way off base? Because I want you to set me straight if you think I'm wrong. I want to know. I mean, I don't know anything, and I'm the first one to admit it." (p.222)


WOW! That is a loaded and very blunt statement with very real questions.

- How do YOU define love?
- What do we really know about love?
- How would you explain Mel's question about losing the love with his first wife? What happened to it?
- How do you feel about his comment about when we lose someone, we move on and find love again?

My statement in class: that we really only want to know the love we are experiencing at the moment. We don't want to think about our spouse finding love with someone else. We don't think about our spouse's past relationships. When you're married those are things you just don't think about it. We want to focus on the love we have currently. Why always look backward when we should be looking forward?