What is love? A question many people often ask themselves, and other people as well. How does one define love? Is love an emotion or just a word people throw around when they like something a lot. The textbook definition of love is, "an intense feeling of deep affection." But often times we wonder if love is real. Can one truly feel an intense feeling of deep affection forever, or is this feeling only temporary?

There is an Orange is the New Black episode that features some of the inmates defining what they believe is love. One of the inmates said, "...and you also have a pizza." Many of the inmates talked about things and experiences that they love, and others talked about the way we act when we are in love, or the way we feel when we are in love. Everyone interprets love in different ways, and we all have our own feelings towards the feeling of love.

Love is a strong word. When we are in love we feel more than just happy. When someone is in love with someone or something, they feel that they can be their whole true self. It is okay to love. It can be scary to love. We fear love because we fear the outcome of loving something. Instead of living in fear of how one might feel about our love, we should embrace our love.

Love is a wonderful thing. For example, I am in love with pizza. I love watching pizza be made, I love watching the cheese bubble as it's baking in the oven, I love watching the grease drip when I fold my slice in half before indulging in all its glory. I love how when I bite into a slice of pizza, I feel the burning sauce ooze into my mouth, and watch the cheese pull apart as I take the piece away from my mouth. Pizza is grand in all its forms. You can have pizza with pineapple and ham, pepperoni, bacon, plain cheese, vegetables, and you can even have cinnamon and sugar pizza. You can make pizza however you please, and add any topping your heart desires and every time it's like heaven on your tastebuds. Whenever I eat pizza I can feel my tastebuds dance around in pure bliss.

But every now and then you get a burnt pizza. Someone forgot about you. Someone forgot about your pizza, and they burned it. The fire you felt burning inside you from the excitement you felt as you anticipated its arrival, has burned a little too long. Burnt pizza does not taste good. It leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.

Love, in a sense, is exactly like pizza. Love is the anticipation you feel right before it arrives, the ecstasy you feel as it hits you, and the emptiness you feel once its gone. Yet, even after we finish eating pizza, and we feel empty, we still go back for more in the future. So why are we so afraid to love again after our hearts have been broken?

Many of us feel that after our first love has been destroyed, we can never love again. Why not go through the joy ride again? What's so scary about feeling so intensely elated all over again? Yeah, you're going to have your heart broken once, twice, maybe even 100 times, but isn't the feeling of loving again worth every heartbreak? Ins't finding love that's so much better than the last worth experiencing everything again?

I may only be 18 years old, but I am sure I know what it's like to feel love, to be in love, and I know that there is nothing wrong with loving again after one love has failed. After your pizza has burned, make it again, or demand a refund. Find someone better, someone new, someone exciting. Find your pizza, and enjoy every last bite, because life is too short to dwell on burnt pizza.