To Have And To Hold... And Never Part

To Have and To Hold...And Never Part


How we define love is a combination of all our ideals, values, dreams, desires and experiences. I have always thought that love was consists of a process that follows the law of action and reaction, the theory of "ifs and thens" and the concept of an absolute formula that the universe will conspire all its elements for a favorable, ideal and the much coveted "happily ever after".


After years of continuous learning, I mark my 34th year with the conclusion that everything I thought and believed love was, was just a tiny fraction of the spectrum of what it really is about. I say this because I know that as I continue my journey in life, I know I am yet to be marvelled by what love truly is and what it can do not just to those who believes in it but also to those who have lost faith and stopped believing that true love still exists. This is not to say that it will come knocking on your door one day and roll out a red carpet with Cinderella 's carriage waiting at the end of the carpet, neither does it come with a talking monkey ready to chauffer you as you fly around the world in a magic carpet passing by the Pyramids of Egypt and the Leaning Tower of Piza or wherever you might want to stop over before reaching Agrabah. This is not what it is all about...not at all. In fact, if this is your idea of what love is, brace yourself and prepare for a big revelation which is going to change you for the rest of your life.


Love is not just about fairytales and childhood fantasies coming into life. Although in a perfect world, I think everyone deserves their own fairytale in life. The truth is... Love and being in love is full of mysteries and revelations unfolding right in front of your eyes, your heart and your entire life. Love is never easy. Anyone who has experienced true love would tell you that expecting it to be a walk on the park is pure manage and insanity. Falling in love and staying in love with someone drives you crazy...and when I say crazy, I mean losing and giving up all logic, rational and sensible understanding and judgment all because we believe it is love...and we subscribe to the idea with every wishful thinking and all the secret wishes we've made on falling stars that in time, love will eventually pull through.


My idea of love has now changed from the unrealistic fairytale-like kind of love to the real world human inter-related kind of love. The truth is when you truly love someone, the true blue honest to goodness kind of love, you will realize that love's goal is not to make everything easy for anyone. In fact, love is not practical, it never is and I doubt it will ever be. True love forces you to love not just the person. I say it forces you because when you fall madly deeply in love with someone, you no longer have a choice but to love every bit of them. You can't hand pick what you want to love and leave out the rest. You fall in love with their entire being and all the other extensions that comes along with them...and this is where the tests really come in. It's not so hard to fall in love with a person. But the challenge learning to love the person as a whole and entirerity. Just like ourselves, this person has had a world before we came along. All their experiences, the people who were a part of the person they have become. In short...their and our pasts. The past that if it weren't for them, we would've been a different person from who we are now. The past that molded us to become our own person. The past that conspired every event we had in our lives and brought us to the person we are so in love with. Yes, the past is both the protagonist and antagonist in many love stories. Why? Because it is the past that has brought us to the present. And it is what carries us to the future if we allows ourselves to move on and learn from it to make the best of the present.


I was wrong to believe that love was a process consist of procedures with instructions to follow. Love has no process. Love is freestyling your way through everything life throws at you and doing anything and everything it takes to things work.