Love is one of the best feelings in the world. When you’re in love you feel light as air, like your heart could burst from your chest at any moment. Love has the power to turn full-grown women back into giggling, blushing schoolgirls and men into bashful, awkward teenage boys.
We spend a lot of time learning how to fall in love, how to behave on a date and how to treat another person with whom you want to develop a romantic relationship.
It feels good to love and be loved in return. Some people might even say that if your life isn’t filled with love, you aren’t really living.
Love can also be one of the worst feelings. It can bring about other less elating emotions, like jealousy and possessiveness. It makes people do crazy things sometimes, including things that may earn restraining orders.
Love can be an excruciatingly painful thing to lose. No one teaches us how to fall out of love. It’s a steep learning curve and we muck through it as best we can under the circumstances. Rarely is there anything graceful about it.
Valentine’s Day is traditionally meant for people to express romantic love to their partners but there are many other types of love that deserve equal recognition and celebration.
It is worth celebrating the love of a father for his daughter. After all, he loved her first and promised to keep her safe at all costs. That promise can include, but is not limited to being over-protective, setting strict curfews, thoroughly interviewing a boy before the first date and making appropriate use of tough love.
It is worth celebrating the love of a mother for her son. She taught him how to do laundry, how to dance, how to cook a decent meal using more than just a can-opener. She also may have taught him to open the car door for a lady and how to treat women with respect.
It is worth celebrating the platonic love of a best friend who has the power to make you howl with laughter, whether or not the situation is 
appropriate. Celebrate that same best friend who doesn’t think twice about coming over in the middle of the night (with a carton of ice cream) to help you gather up the pieces of your shattered heart from the bathroom floor.
It is even worth celebrating the love of a pet. Your dog, for example, who nudges at you when you play dead on the kitchen floor, just to see how he would react if you actually died. Take notice of how a dog greets you when you come home at the end of the day. It seems like he thinks you’ve been gone for years. Many people think that a dog is the only creature on Earth who loves you more than he loves himself.
As Feb. 14 approaches, take some time to acknowledge the different relationships in your life. Whether attached, single, or “it’s complicated,” love is present in our lives. We must learn to value it in all its forms.