What is love anyway?

Perhaps my experiences colour my responses to this question. What is love anyway? Well the first thing that comes to mind is a respect and passion entertwined with a deep desire to be open to another, closed with another, intertwined with another. It's like that Jack Nickelson Line (the name of the movie escapes me) "You make me want to be a better man". This is I believe, a huge part of love. Letting down the boundaries and opening up the Chakra's, for want of a better word, to allow someones energy connect with your own. To paraphrase an old christian martyr, Love is patience, kindness, the absence of arrogance, and rudeness. It is not decietful or boastful or jealous but rejoices in a type of truth that exists but that we don't always acknowledge. It is giving and allowing yourself to recieve. Touching and being touched in the deepest area's of our being. Seeing with the inner eyes the true beauty of that which we behold.
Yes there are different types of love, but I believe they are in fact all the same thing to a greater or lesser degree. It is loosing yourself willingly but with awareness. Not loosing yourself totally to the detriment of your well being. Love is a strong, positive, healing, forgiving emotion. It is a good thing but often, the human finds it easier to love than to be loved. Until we do both we cannot say we are truly experiencing love. Obviously it is deeper than affection, lust, or the desire to belong. It is active not passive. It takes thought, decision, and courage. True love is not something that blinds but rather the thing that teaches us to see the wonder of ourselves and another. Love is not a feeling it's a choice. Living in Nice is my choice because I love my son and I love myself. Both of us grow together and compliment each other due to this choice. Life on the CDA is not a simple thing. I used to admire people who left Ireland. Little did I know the struggles people who emigrate go through as they try to integrate into a new culture and a new way of life. Somehow we tear ourselves away from a love that exists in the ether in each of our nations, (a kind of national consciousness) and go somewhere we are not yet loved. You know you have arrived when the love comes in spades. I am still on the journey.
So there you go. My two cents worth, open for disscussion, comment, ridicule, praise and correction.