In the moment of stillness

April 04, 2014
(Because dates are important)

I have pondered over this a hundred times. I felt like there was something I had to say, but I did not quite know what that was. I am not any closer to knowing it still, but finally I feel so smothered by what’s inside me, that I believed whether it made sense or not I had to get it out.

So, love. Being the pseudo-intellectual former Goth that I am, this is one of those arbitrary mysteries of life that I have thought about often. As I coursed my way through life, I have met Love various times, either as an impostor, a fleeting encounter, a painful friendship, or as real and beautiful as it is supposed to be. Love was different each time, and what I thought of it was different too. But what was same is that Love didn't stay, but also that every time I got close to it, I discovered something I didn't know before. 

Love has taught me a lot. The most important of those lessons was that just because it doesn't stay, it doesn't make the love that was, any less real. And this is a revelation that has given meaning to experiences I could have easily tossed aside as a phase. It makes all the times that I was fortunate enough to feel Love, true, even though I ceased to feel it in due course of time. It strengthens my connection with my own emotions.

I started out saying I wasn't sure where I was going with it. And I’m still looking to find my way. And the journey has elicited emotions that I didn't think possible. I have discovered over the years that I can change, that I let myself be morphed in to a person who has characteristics of what I despise and what I am inspired by. I have learnt that not all my views are always right and that I am fallible. I struggle with this every day, changing from a fifteen year old that thought that professing love made you weak and vulnerable to my present self that knows that love is worth it. And I can only say this in hindsight, because love though otherworldly when right, is very unpleasant when gone wrong. I have alternated between these highs and lows various times and but the moments of stillness in between always makes me yearn for them.

For a long time, I wanted love to be exciting, filled with the drama brought to life in any good work of art. And I am grateful that I have known that kind of love. But now, I think I could do with the boring love for a change. The love that is a silent companion, that you can depend on, that is so ingrained in your soul that an alternative is unthinkable. The love that stays.