Love-loved-loved.
Every verb has a past form. So does love. We love and we loved.
For decades writers have been trying to make us understand that love is some eureka that happens once in a life. That if old lovers can be friends it is because they never really loved each other. That you either love someone forever or you never loved them at all. Why is it still not commonly established that a love that came at the wrong time of your life is still a love that happened? When will we understand that even if the lovers aren’t wrong their time and situation can be? Why is it that if you don’t love someone now it means you never loved them at all? Why is our capability of loving taken as such a small thing that it’s finished if we have loved once in our life? Why is it that you have to hate your old lover to be with someone new?
As beautiful as loving can be, parting from your lover shouldn’t have to be so ugly. People don’t always fall out of love because they lie, cheat, and hurt each other. People can fall apart because they grow, mature, and understand their incapability of being with each other. People don’t always have to fall apart because they misunderstand each other. People can sometimes fall apart because they understand each other too well and they understand that they are not alike at all. When we are in our teenage years and we fall in love; we fall in love with an idea of them. We don’t even know ourselves then, we are exploring the world and growing up. We fall in love with people who are experiencing the reality and growing up. Sometimes we are lucky enough to grow as the same person we are in love with. But exceptions can not be examples. More often we grow to be different and to have different mindsets. We learn about ourselves more. We get to know who we are and what we want. We understand our needs and we set our goals. Love should not captivate you in a box to keep you close. Love should make you feel free to grow. Sometimes, to love is to let go. If it’s not helping you to evolve you must let it go. After all, if the destination isn’t the same why take the same paths?
“A person is never the same person for very long. You can carry memories in your soul, for example, of childhood friendships, but agonize over the fact that they are only memories because those friends are not the same people right now. This kind of experiential interaction with memories and the people attached to our memories, is a source of anguish in all of our lives. There is a type of acceptance and understanding that needs to be applied here: accepting that the scenes of life change as time goes by, and understanding that the people occupying the scenes of your life were in fact authentic. But right now, they are authentically who they are NOW, which is a different person. They’re not the same person today. But who they used to be was also who they truly were at that time. We need to release people from the chains of our memories and not demand explanations of them. We must allow them the freedom to morph, to grow, into all the persons they were meant to become. But then we also have to afford ourselves this, in that very same breath. And this is why, sometimes marriages need to be over, sometimes friendships need to be over, sometimes relationships need to come to an end. Because you need to set yourself, and other people, free from the skins they used to wear.”
But will it mean that what we felt once was not real? We simply can not undo the feelings that we felt just because we see the world differently now. What we felt, felt. It was as genuine as it could get. We were meant to be with each other so we were with each other. If we are no longer with each other, that too is meant to be. We can not believe destiny in half. Whatever happened was supposed to happen. It was needed for us to grow. We can not skip chapters of our lives and jump to the good part. The heartbreak, pain, and love we felt were a part of our process into being what we are now.
‘Love is not blind; love sees, love knows, love hears. Yet, love decides to let go.’
Now that it’s in the past do we have to hold onto it to prove that it was all true? A truth is a truth even unspoken, even forgotten. You wish them well but you no longer wish them. You don’t hate them and you don’t love them. You just never think about them. You once loved them so does that mean you can never love anyone else? You are now grown and you understand so much. You know the impact of your decisions and words now. So, you are telling me, at this age, when you are perfectly capable of loving and know what to expect from love- you are planning to give up on that because you once could not love someone properly? Or that you believe that love only comes once in a lifetime? Love once came to your life and it is gone cause it was meant to be. Your loyalty was beautiful till you maintained it while you were with them. Your dragged loyalty for a love that isn’t there anymore will only be closing your doors for future happiness. Where there are seven billion people in the world and half a billion potential soul mates, your chance of finding your true love is one in 10,000; you are giving up after failing one time? I am not referring to the idea of going on a quest for your soulmate because as the poets said and life showed, ‘Love will find you’. Love will come to you.
‘You cannot begin the next chapter of your life if you keep rereading the last one.’
It was never supposed to be one true love. Love is true again and again. Love can’t be half-love, impure-love or fake-love. Love is just love. Love is always true. Crushs, infatuation, and other temporary feelings labeled as love can be misleading. Love can be as many times as you feel it. Love is unapologetic and love is therapeutic. Love crushes your daydreams but never causes any nightmares. Love opens the door for your imagination and makes you do things you never dream of. Love makes you happy and love makes you dramatic even if you don’t try. Love makes you believe that you can climb mountains, dive into oceans, and fly among the clouds if you hold that person’s hands. Love makes you trust the process. Love gives you tolerance and love makes you feel good about compromising. Love wants you to be your best and love supports you while you grow. Love understands more than it should and love always laughs at your bad jokes. Love is a feeling. It can not be forced and it can not be stopped. If life gives you another chance to ever feel it, well, you are damned. Don’t let it go.
