[||!prliignore3||Today's C&D Guest Blogger is Melinda Lewis, the founder of ||!prliignore0|| company; a daily lifestyle blog that features ideas on living quality, spirit musings, home décor, and entertaining from the heart. She lives in Harlem, New York with her husband Regg and their Beta Fish Seymore||!prliignore4||]

The L word is such an overly used, frustratingly narrow utterance. But like all things American, we learn how to make things user friendly and Valentine’s Day is no exception: Roses at mind-boggling markup prices, kitschy note cards,”who can afford filet mignon” dinners, “I look fat in this” lingerie, and an insanely ginormous amount of drugstore snuggle bears and heart shaped chocolates. It’s all too much. So much so that we want the commercialism of the Red Love Day to fall into the bottom of a Volcano already.

But this could just be me.

Five years into my marriage I was once the “uuugh!” and the “arrrrrrgh!” cynic of commercialized love. But I am now happy to say that my rough edges have softened. My narrow perspective of how I thought love should be acknowledged and celebrated has since been blown out of the water. From the second grader who laboriously Crayola’s hearts for Mommy and Daddy to the career driven long distance couple that divides time between Coasts to the soldier in Iraq who wants to be with his family to appreciating the wisdom in the crow’s feet of your Grandmother’s eyes. Love is omnipresent; it’s everywhere.

I thought what I wanted was the right to define love — when what I really wanted was the ability to experience and recognize love on every level of my being. My cynical mind didn’t think that could ever be possible so I blamed Hallmark for what I saw as it’s squishy consumerism. But when you change the way you look at things; the things you look at change. Who are we to say that love shouldn’t be embellished? Who are we to say that gifts big and small are just hype?

We all want admiration, unconditional acceptance, great sex, a trusted source to depend on, to be doted on and to be forgiven but we’ve been conditioned to be as tough as nails when it comes to embracing vulnerability. I now know this to be true: love will always be the “in” thing, because we all crave it within the fabric of our being.

It’s just up to the individual to create what love will mean for them.

[Photo by ||!prliignore1||]