It’s a love that goes by many names but is rarely recognized for what it is. Sometimes we call it the daily grind. It’s the teacher who gets up tired in the morning after spending the night with a stack of papers, walks boldly into a classroom, and starts all over again. It’s the mother eating her kid’s leftover sandwich crusts for lunch as she rushes from work in order to take him to his basketball game. It’s the cashier working the graveyard shift, who has a word of kindness for every bleary-eyed customer who stumbles in.

There’s no glory in it. It’s just life. There are no chart-topping songs written about  the devotion a parent feels for their child, there are no greeting cards that express the courage required to pursue a high ideal, or the  strength it takes to work a thankless job.

We have a holiday for the sweep-you-off-your-feet, carry-you-to-Paris, throw-rose-petals-on-a-big-bed kind of love. And while that kind of love might be a picnic (pardon the cliché), it’s just that: a pleasant, but comparatively trivial, diversion. (And yes, a cliché.)

So why do we laud this one version of love above all other emotions? Is it some bizarre holdover from the Middle Ages? Is it because (heterosexual) romantic love is procreative, and we want to ensure the survival of our species? Have we been duped by greeting card companies?

But we digress. We aren’t here to defame romance, we come in the spirit of love, wishing only to share the wealth.

There is, and will never be, a holiday that celebrates the everyday love that oils the gears of the world. Perhaps the reason is that we don’t need a holiday; we do it anyway. We get up, we go to work, we go to school, we extend kindness to strangers, we devote ourselves to work and play. We are all great lovers.

But we also get caught up. We forget the real reasons that we do what we do. In honor of true love, we want to wear our hearts on our sleeve, and confess our true feelings to you:

We, The Guilfordian, love you, dear Reader. Be you young or old, fat or thin. Be you bald of head or thick of hair. Be you white chocolate or pure cocoa,  spicy or sweet, messy or neat. Be you skeptical or starry-eyed, devoted reader or occasional skimmer. We love you.

The editorial board of the Guilfordian consists of five section editors, a photo editor, layout editor, web editor, diversity coordinator, advertising manager, video editor, executive print copy editor, executive web copy editor, social justice editor, managing editor, and editor-in-chief.

Reflecting Guilford College’s core Quaker values, the topics and content of Staff Editorials are chosen through consensus of all 16 editors.