The (Only One?) True Love Predicament

“This is not a goodbye, my darling, this is a thank you. Thank you for coming into my life and giving me joy, thank you for loving me and receiving my love in return. Thank you for the memories I will cherish forever. I love you, T.”

- Nicholas Sparks,

  'Message in a Bottle'

  

As the title obviously suggests this post is going to be a very soppy self-indulgent one, well at any rate more than my usual ones are anyway. So you very well should know what you are getting into.

Actually, sometimes I think life would be so much simpler if everything came with such a warning.

Right at the beginning of some important chapter in your life there comes a disclaimer - like those before the movies or on the cigarette cases.

("smoking is injurious to health" - really? I had no idea!)

These warnings seems to crop up everywhere. At the violent movies, that most impressionable children are inevitably going to watch; and at the boxes of cigarettes, that most smokers are going to puff out no matter what!

But then I think, just as futile as these disclaimers are in either scenarios; they might prove just as pointless if they were to be placed at some really landmark turning points of our life. Would we change our paths if there were anything that warns us of the dangers or the hurt and pain ahead of you? Would we dare not to have known/had those wonderful experiences that most of these moments bring into our lives?

Suppose at the precise moment that you get out of college and sit for your very first job interview, just before you answer their first question a pop up video blurb appears (like the one in that show in MTV) saying:

"Fun Fact: The moment you answer this question the interviewer would be impressed and immediately decide to hire you. You will agree to work here for considerably lower pay that what they would have easily agreed to pay had you negotiated a little more. They will squeeze your brain and blood for the next four years, robbing you off of all the zeal and innovative ideas you've ever had throughout your college life turning you into just like the pompous vegetable they themselves have turned into!"

Now after seeing that, would you in your right senses ever accept such a job offer?

Obviously no.

But since there wasn't any such pop up prediction available for you at that time, you take up that job and end up being miserable for the next four years of your life just as it had said. You sell your soul to the devil in return for four years of work experience in something that you never had any real interest in. And with people that you don't care lived or evaporated.

That's obviously disheartening, isn't it? But still, this office was the place you discovered your affinity to Beatles and Zappa. This is the place where you will meet a senior manager who will become one of your favorite mentor and stay so even after you leave the company. Also, this could also be the place where you make acquaintance with a girl with whose roommate you fall head over heels in love. Would you dare miss out on all that??

Now, imagine if there were to be such a disclaimer when it came to matters of the heart. But for obvious reasons it should be different from the one above.

After all matters of the heart supersedes in importance over anything else in one’s life, right?

I suppose it must be like the one in the music video of Savin' Me by Nickelback. Just like in the video, here there is a countdown on top every prospective mate in your vicinity, stating the amount of time they are going to stay in your life.

But that’s not enough now is it? There are many other equally crucial and decisive criteria that you will tick off when it comes to choosing someone to fall in love with.

Most often I have heard people, men and women alike, bring up this make-or-break requirement that their prospects just have gotta to fulfill: ”He/she has got to be my soul mate."

Perdóname, senor. What does soul mate mean exactly?

Oxford says, "Soul mate : a person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner."

Now, tell me what/when/how has any man/woman/others in all of the history of mankind on this planet ever, been able to find anything that has been remotely deemed fit to be described as 'ideal'?

There has always been a compromise. At some level or the other no matter good or desirable that object might be, you always have to adjust with something. Some might argue that this specific defect/quirk is probably what that makes this person all the more dear to them, their One True Love.

When you had imagined your ideal partner in the first place, did you imagine them with all these elfin eccentricities?

Probably not. By definition, these quirks and fancy traits that they have are for the most part their own creations. Unique and very hard to imagine on any person before you happen to come across somebody actually having them. How could one possibly envision them any earlier?

 Another thing that has always baffled me:

Suppose you are married to wonderful person, you love him and soon have a couple of amazing children with this person that you love very dearly. Then many years down the line you come by another guy/gal who seems to be that perfect mate you have always dreamed of. You acquaint with this person and you start a terrific rapport just to find that you and he/she have more in common with you than you and your spouse has ever had in all of your time together.

Let's just assume that you go crazy in love/infatuation/lust/emotion/whatever and leave behind the house that you have built with your spouse of so many years to go live with this person.

Do you imagine a happily-ever-after ending to this tale in every situation ahead?

Might work, might not. This person that you are riding off into the sunset with, could turn out to be the sweetest of souls ever to be born, or just another Axe Murderer or the next Josef Fritzl.

In any case. Could you help me understand what was the fault of your child or of the husband/wife you leave behind?

See where this baffles me?

Alright, let’s consider a different scenario now then.

Imagine, you are young again. Bright, happy, full of energy and good-spirits. You find there is a world of possibility out there and you have found just the right person you want to share your brave new world with.

Suppose this is your "soul mate". Suppose you love each other a lot. A whole frigging lot!

You love each other so much that even a moment apart, from the sight of the other makes you feel hollow and hard to breathe. When you are with them you heart beats louder and faster. When you touch them your skin heats up and your senses get sharper. You could feel every cell in their body as a part of your own being. Your whole existence revolves around that shy smile that appears on their lips when you lightly kiss their cheeks or tell them how much you love them or how beautiful they are. You'd do anything to keep them happy and content.

Now.

Suppose this person, somehow is unable to stay with you for long. This person somehow finds it impossible to keep you in their life any more. Theirs can be any number of reason, financial, emotional, health issues, family pressure, cultural. Anything.

Suppose this person leaves you. High and dry. Just when you thought there was nothing that was ever going to destroy the wonderful life you were living.

This is where I get confused.

What does the Soul-mate Rulebook say about such scenarios?

Just because some inconvenient situation leads up to the untimely demise of a relationship that you thought would last a lifetime, and you lose your Mr/Ms. Right. Do they stop being the Mr/Ms. Right?

Do you end up making do with whatever riff-raff life dishes up to you next? You end up compromising with your happiness, your love, your emotions and your needs for the rest of your life?

This person who at one point you considered was the best thing that had ever happened to you, all of a sudden becomes the one thing that you hoped never existed ever in the first place? This person whose laugh made your day, whose one smile cured of more foul moods and ill-temper than all the capsules of Zoloft and Valiums in the planet could ever hope to.

Does this person, your soul mate, all of a sudden become your most hated person on the planet?

When did this person stop being your reason to live, become the reason for you to seriously begin contemplating becoming a murderer?

I don’t know.

I always thought love was a very strange, inexplicably complicated part of our lives. And more so because of the fact that almost every single person seems to have gone through heartbreak at least once in a lifetime. Those of you who say they haven’t, probably had ever taken any real plunge or are in denial and lying to themselves.

We tend to put so much high hopes on our hearts virtues and its capability to love can bring into our lives. We dream of beautiful days ahead filled with romantic getaways, cheesy text messages filled with really cute (lame to others) nicknames and mix-tapes (ref Brighter Than Sunshine – Aqualung, Its Only Love – Beatles).

How many can actually say they have had it good, all the time?

I hate having to see people who loved each other so bloody much, end up having to despise the very sight and sound of the other person. I hate having to see people who used to always find each other in any crowd without any trouble, now pass each other on the street and not even turn to have a second glance. I hate having to see people who would not think of getting up from the bed unless they read a good morning text from the other person, now could go months and years without a wish to even see a ‘hi’ from them. I hate having to see two people who used to find excuses to touch each other in any way possible, now probably wouldn’t mind if the other person’s arm got chopped off.

Where is the love, was it ever there at all?

I know that this person has hurt you. But does that mean you have to turn all that love you had built deep inside of you for this person into an equally gigantic mountain of hate and anger?

I understand there are inexcusable sins that a person can do while in a relationship, infidelity – emotional, physical, the lot. But when you sit and think stuff out, you will find that the blame lies in both side of the court. He/she might have been the first to put an end to your romance or to do wrong, but maybe he/she is not the only one who led up to that.

Are you the only one with the right to put the blame on the other person?

If you loved him/her as much as you say you did, you wouldn’t let them go just like that without a fight, would you?

You could say that the channel of communication no longer existed. You were given no opportunity to actually sit down and have a heart-out with this person about the whole thing. You could also say the other person never really gave you a sliver of a hint that they still wished you to be in their life. You do understand how all this might sound like a bunch of lame excuses, right?

The truth is you were a coward. Don’t say you were never given the opportunity to speak to them or see them. That never stopped you when you were with this person; you always found some devious plan to meet them even if none such opportunity ever came up. You never were afraid of her parents, your parents, your friends, her friends, the whole frigging world. You always found way to meet them!

No, this time around you were afraid to actually face up to this person and hear it from his/her mouth. You couldn’t bear to see the mouth that said all those sweet nothings not too long back, now say that there was no ‘us’ anymore. You didn’t want to admit it to yourself this fact. You could'nt face it. Once they say it, that’d be the final nail on the coffin of your beautiful once-in-a-lifetime romance.

The blame is equal on both parties, if you could call it blame at all. What happened or didn’t happen was all caused by a bunch of unfortunate twists of fate and couple of stupid choices both of you had made. But what has been done is done; now there is no going back. You will probably live to see a day when you could bear to think about them again without animosity. You will survive. The person will find someone else, probably has. So will you, maybe way down the line, maybe a decade later. But you will.

When it lasted it was the most beautiful thing ever, now it has ceased to exist. But that by no extent makes what you shared any less wonderful. Like Rick Blaine and Ilsa, you’ll always have your Paris.

The days you’ve spent will be yours and yours alone, and it really should be that way. You will always keep it pure and untarnished. You will always keep it as your own little secret, your secret little happy place that you will go to every once in a while. Your visits to this beautiful land of the past will be for obvious reasons more frequent now when your wound is still in its bleeding phase, but later on like all wounds it will also heal and your visits will be fewer. You will both learn to move on. You will both find happiness again, and in much later point in life you will hope that the other person does found happiness too.

When you were in love, they must have asked you what it was that you liked best about them. You might have come up with a bunch of clever adjectives to try and describe what you found most adorable in them – beautiful, smart, kind, intelligent, honest, sweet, caring etc. But as you look back now, you realize that those were the things that made you fall in love with them, what made you to stay in love with them for so long was many different little things that they did to make you feel good about yourself, mostly without even them realizing they were doing it.

What you thought most attractive in them earlier – their hair, lips, eyes, midriff etc. All still seem equally attractive yes, but what you now miss most about them are the things that you never really took much notice of back then – the cute little birthmark, the freckles on their shoulder, their perfectly sculpted nose, some of their special expressions/looks that they gave which made your heart skip a half a dozen beats, their gorgeous suprasternal notch (yes, just like in The English Patient!).

You miss them, whole and parts, all included.

I believe our capacity to love is extraordinary. We will always love the other person no matter how much we make ourselves believe that we don’t. Yes, we are disappointed at how things turned out, yes we are sad that the state of things are now so far from what you had dreamed of. Yes, you loved with your whole heart one day, the next day there was nothing, at least you didn’t feel it shown from the other end.

But you see, love’s always there. You will always love them, they will always love you. You have lost something special, probably so has he/she. They must be hurting too. Forgive them, let them know that you forgive them. Try and let them know that they still are an important part of who you are. Let them know that they are still your very best friend, the one who has best understood you. And you miss that, and you need your best friend back into your life. Just let them know, you are willing to wait for as long as it takes for them to come back to you in that capacity. As your friend.

The honest truth is, you will never forget nor lose the love you have for him/her.

I like to think it only gets compartmentalized into some corner of our heart. You will put it there, safe and out of reach from others so nobody could ever corrupt it.

Love – the noun and the verb – is such a strange thing.

Love is infinite. Just because you have locked away a chunk of your heart doesn’t mean you have only got a part of it left to make do with. I believe our capacity to love is immeasurable. You have partitioned a portion of it for this person. And if it is your first true love, it is going to be of bigger size than the rest, because the first ones are the purest ones, the special ones. When the rest follows you aren’t that innocent anymore, you become more cautious and share only smallers portion of love at a time than you did on your first grand affair.

But don’t ever feel yourself shorthanded just because you have loved and lost. There is still all the supply you could ever want for, and then some more.

Love is omnipresent. It could happen with anybody, at any time, for any reason. You loved this person not because this person is your One-and-Only. You loved this person because who he/she is, who he/she was with you, how you were at that time, and also that you were ready at that point to actually welcome him/her into your life.

You cannot rationalize your love for somebody. If you actually think you can, write a book about it, you’d be a millionaire!

Love stays, forever and ever. Maybe more hidden than it was earlier, but it sticks.

If you lost one person that you loved so dearly, it doesn’t mean your or their life has ended or has come to a standstill. It doesn’t mean that you will not have anybody else to accept all that you have still have to offer.

An era has ended, yes. One chapter of your life, probably a very beautiful and precious one, has been closed. But your life’s book still has a lot of blank pages for you to fill in. And if you keep coming back to this closed one any more, you will only end up with a sad lonely life ahead and more blank pages.

Love can happen to anyone, with anyone, at any time, for any reason.

We aren’t capable of rationalizing it, nor rationing it.

Love with all your heart. Take risks. Go out and take plunges that scare the bleeping crap out of you. The planet has eight billion odd people out there. And to think that there is only one person, who could make you feel weak on the knees for the rest of your days here, is a very stingy allotment of resources. And I don’t think whoever created this universe is by any extent a miser. He has been generous to mankind when it comes to so many things that we have in life. Do you think he will try and rip you off in such an important aspect of life?

Try and be happy again, my friend. And for all hopes and purposes, try and wish that the other person also finds all the reasons in life to be happy and to feel loved again.

Let go. Forgive. Love!

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