Love isn't a thing. It’s a feeling. Love as a term is over-used. It is generic and is better understood more specifically. Love manifests as an infinity of feeling: as affection, companionship, respect, care, lust, infatuation and so on. It is usually assumed to be good and positive but it can also be about obsession, dependency, misery and heart-break. You can also love a thing, a place, a memory, an activity. The context of love possibilities is endless.

The person you love most might be your “soul-mate”. I always rather liked that idea, the romantic notion that there is a special person you are cosmically bonded to. For me this was about destiny, the right person who would come along virtually ready-made and perfect. Youthful folly was that. Not impossible, just not very likely. 

In more prosaic terms, soul-mate refers to a good partnership, one that endures, is life-affirming, constructive, benevolent and promotes trust and understanding. Such a relationship might be cultivated over time with effort and focus or it might be more immediate, natural and spontaneous. Whichever way love is, shared experience and shared values are its bedrock.