Yeesh, Love Again

How many times have you sat there with your girl friends asking yourselves what love is. And you rake through your resume of boyfriends and assess each relationship only to gaze back at each other with a resounding no. No. We do not know what love is. We do not know what love is because we have never loved.

See, I have been in such a situation before. I have sat there countless times, and had this same conversation, with the same people. And each time, despite having had amazing relationships, and sometimes during an amazing relationship, we each concluded that we do not know what love is.

Funny that thing called love. You just can’t write about without sounding like a catalogue of old songs. Its very nature is clichéd.

My theory is this. That being in love is one thing. But knowing what love is quite another. You see, of course people find love. The love that everyone talks about. The love that makes the world go round. The one that everyone wants. That rare elixir of life that nourishes the being. Mostly people do recognize it and are grateful for being blessed. And they go on and live happily ever after until one dies and the other one dies soon after from suffocation (‘cos when you love deeply and a lover goes, you can’t breathe).

But then there are other people who are not so switched on. Those who maybe don’t know themselves so well. Or others who are so entangled with issues that they cannot grasp the notion without tripping and falling flat on their faces. Others are maybe a combination of the two. They just don’t see the trees from the woods and are unable to identify that love has hit them in full force.

I am one such person. I found love and it was a lightning bolt. Not a loud one. But there was certainly a jolt that came from within that electrified me into noticing that this person was worth more than just a glance. That was finding love. Finding love is loud. It’s exciting, mind-boggling, heart-racing, pulse-hyperdrive, sensational and irrational kind of stuff. It’s vivacious and bursting with flavour. It makes you happy, it makes you suicidal, it makes you feel alive.

That’s all well and good, but finding love is one thing. But knowing it, is quite another. You could very well have found the love yet be completely oblivious to it. And then you sit in that café with your girls and talk about how great this guy is but, heck, you don’t know what love is ‘cos we expect more, more, more.

I know that there are things that you are just born knowing. But if you are say, too young or too tanked up with issues, or maybe even too afraid, how do you identify one happiness from another? What separates one good boyfriend from another? You can’t and therefore, you think you haven’t found true love, because you think true love is an aggressive creature and it’s supposed to hit you in the face until your black and blue because it will not be ignored.

What we expect of love is what we see in the movies. But we forget that movies are a condensed version of life. Yes, some things are portrayed realistically and some things aren’t – but they all have to fit into a 3-hour slot or else people wouldn’t come and watch. So we always expect and wait for a clear and unmistakable sign or act and ignore the slow realizations - the ones staring at you in the face. We wait and wait for the clouds to part and for love to shine on to us, but has anyone ever told you that’s not how it happens in real life?

Alas, really knowing true love is subtle and quiet and has none of the showiness that first attracted you to it. For some people, it could take years to realize that they truly loved and were loved in return. Knowing love is like the silent dawn. The one where you are convinced it’s the dead of night and suddenly when you least expect it, there’s a glimmer of light in the horizon. It’s as unstoppable as the sunrise but just as sure. And before you know it, you just know it and its broad daylight. A new day has dawned, and it’s dawned upon you and finally and quite simply, you know.

For some, like me, the dawn comes late. Sometimes the lover has fled the scene and you are enjoying the sunrise alone. Now, that is a sorry situation to be in. What can I say? Well, on the bright side, you are no longer in the dark.