Wednesday 23 April 2014

Heartbreak

I thought I knew heartbreak when I had my first break-up right out of school. It's now that I realise that you can't know heartbreak if you haven't known love, and I write love to make the distinction between infatuation and love clear.

While love knows no age, I truly believe that it is experienced differently at different stages of life. As a teenager, you only know attraction (I am assuming a normal teenager to be immature). Love, however, is a lot more and it is in your 20s that you experience love in its truest form. There is a reason why I am adding a number to love. During my very little but profound experience with love, I have realised that love is synonymous with sacrifice, tolerance, acceptance and permanence. I take that idea observing the love between a parent and his/her child. When you keep that perspective, you see how my idea of love fits into place. If you can love someone like a parent and be loved by that someone like a child, that love is worth keeping in life.

Permanence, however, is still tricky to deal with. I have been loved like a child, my needs have been put before the needs of that someone and in turn I have loved like a parent, giving more than demanding. How then do I accept the idea of stopping to love that someone? Isn't it bizarre if your mother tells you that she doesn't love you anymore and you must lead separate lives now? Imagine the fear and chaos it would lead if your relationship with your parents becomes as flimsy as your other relationships. We grow up with the sense of security that the world may turn upside down but family will stay forever. Permanence is a very important attribute of a parent-child relationship.

I am not saying everyone views a relationship the way I do. Some people like the idea that they can choose without having to be bogged down with the idea of permanence. I didn't start off the relationship clinging to it either. As time passed by and I realised the intensity of my feelings, I started to view it this way. Relationships need to be worked on. I decided that problems need to be sorted. Running away is not an option. Fights have to be resolved. Walking out is not an option. If you believe you have the option of an 'out', you unwillingly create the possibility of an 'out'. And so I incorporated sacrifice, tolerance, acceptance and sadly the idea of permanence to my view of my relationship.

As things started turning sour, I could not accept the idea of parting ways, I was already convinced with permanence. How am I to stop loving someone? It is an absurd concept. Sadly, reality remained stubborn and the heartbreak came nonetheless. A year of struggle taught me, that I was never wrong. I can not stop loving and I do not have to. Love is permanent and it will be so for me. But would I extend the attribute of permanence again to my next relationship? I highly doubt it. Not until I get married. Maybe not then either.

I do pray love is unlimited though. Can't have used up my love resource already. 

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