Your definition of love, in great detail (5/30)
I am a romance writer. I'm sure that you know that already. Since I was thirteen-years-old, I've been writing about love and romance. I've been exposed to all it's hues and colors so much that I am saturated with it. It means a lot to me because it gives me something to long for, to wish for and to live for. My stories are full of a maiden's wishful thinking and hopeful yearnings. This is the secret to my success. I give my readers a sweet escape and a soft illusion where they can pretend that they are the heroes or heroines in a fantastic love story crafted to melt even the hardest heart. Romance is all about roses, candlelight and sweet music. It means sweeping another person off their feet and promising them the moon and the stars. It's all about the sweet and tender gestures meant to make people want to love being in love! That's what I write about. I write about the romance that is not available to me thus making it accessible to everybody. (See, everybody's happy!)
How do I define love? I can't really explain it properly without including a long list of tired cliches and high rhetoric. Humans have pondered over the meaning of love for ages. What can a simple girl like me add to the collected musings of humankind? All I know about love is that it's everywhere. We can't escape it. It's simply there.
Sure, I can say that God is love. That's true. I believe that God loved us so much that He gave His Son to save us from our sins. To die for someone without a second thought is love. But there are many kinds of love like there are many kinds of people. It's simply impossible to pin it down. I cannot say that God is the exact meaning of love for me although He is the reason why I love. If it wasn't for Him then I wouldn't exist to feel it.
I think love, honestly, is something bittersweet. It has the ability to empower or to weaken us without a second thought. It comes with happiness and sadness, ecstasy and misery. It's just two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other. It's simply inescapable. It's the essence of life. If we're not sad then we wouldn't know how it feels to be happy. If we're always happy then we do not appreciate what we have until we lose it or something to that effect. I think love is just like that. You can't be happy or sad. It's always a mixture of both emotions. In my previous relationship, I've known how it feels to swing between heaven and hell. Love is something that always gives me a pleasurable ache or a painful ecstasy. You can't have one or the other. It's always supposed to be taken as a whole.
In spite of this rather cynical view of the bipolar madness of love, I'm still a hopeless romantic. I believe that God will provide me with a man who can answer all of my prayers someday. He'll bless us with a love that is sanctified by the church and accepted by society. It will be a sweet and steady love that will live up to it's promise, "for better or for worse." We can swallow our differences and struggle together without letting go of each other's hand. Life is full of troubles and hardships but my love will see me through by giving me something to smile at, to laugh at and to rejoice in spite of it all. That's love to me.
God will give me a man who will be strong, trustworthy and full of pride for his family. He doesn't have to be perfect because I'm not. We'll accept each other as we are. We'll probably learn to live with our quirks, differences and inherent weirdness. He'll be sweet to me and he'll make me laugh. We'll probably keep the romance alive even without trying. God knows what's best for me. He knows what kind of man deserves me and what kind of man will make me happy. (Or make me sad. It depends!) And when that man comes along, I will love him completely because I believe that love doesn't hold back, it doesn't run away from suffering and it endures without complaint. I will love him even through the uncertainty. That's love to me.
Here's my favorite story by syaoran_no_hime , All Mine to Give, to further illustrate my point.
Daidouji Tomoyo watched as her friend, Hiiragizawa Eriol folded the love letter stuck in his locker. His azure eyes searched for the trash can, and when they found it, the love letter was thrown immediately in there.
"Another one bites the dust," she said. "Wow, Eriol-kun. If I invest in your charm in the stock market, I'll be making millions! Everyone you meet seems to fall in love with you."
Eriol shrugged. "As if you need those millions."
"I was just stating how lethal your charms are, Eriol-kun," she said. "The Tokyo police force should ban you from the female population…you're a heartbreaker."
"I'm not a heartbreaker," he said as they walked out of school. "It's not my fault that they like me."
"Yeah," she agreed. "Let's go to the park. Buy me an ice cream cone."
He blinked.
"You promised to buy me one yesterday," she insisted.
"I didn't," he said flatly.
"You did, because you told me that you would buy me ice cream for the next two weeks if I stop dating Terada-sensei." Tomoyo smiled at him. "Remember?"
He vaguely remembered saying that, just so his friend would stop her insane escapades with the teacher. But did he specifically state two weeks? He rubbed his head. "Why do I have to bribe you like a child just so you would stop chasing men?"
"I don't chase men!" she snapped. "I'm just trying to fall in love."
He fell silent. He knew she was right. Daidouji Tomoyo was very vocal about wanting to desperately fall in love because she wanted to feel what her cousin feels when she was with Li Syaoran.
"Granted that you are," he said. "But why do you always end up falling for wrong men?"
She had to smile. "All the men I fall for are wrong in your eyes, in one way or another. The first guy who took me out on a date, you find too much of a narcissist. The other one was too shy. The next one was too radical, while the succeeding guy was too stiff. You say the guy I went out with last week was too young, and now, you don't like Terada because he's too old."
"It's not the age, Daidouji-san," he explained. "Terada had just cooled off his relationship with Rika. I just don't want you to get hurt because…I'm afraid he would just be using you as a pinch hitter…someone to rebound on because of his failed relationship."
They arrived in the ice cream station. Eriol took out his wallet. "Chocolate?"
She nodded, and he proceeded to buy two cones.
"As I was saying, Daidouji-san.." he continued but Tomoyo frowned.
"No, Eriol-kun. I've got your point. We have talked about this for so many times already, and it always ends in one thing…" She took the cone from his hand. "No one is good enough for me."
"Right," he agreed. "And as I always tell you, just be patient. The right man for you will come in the right time in the right circumstances. Anything below from that condition is not true love."
"How should you know?" she asked, eyebrow raised. "You have never tried to love at all."
"I don't believe in love, that's all," he said simply.
"Why?" she asked curiously.
He wiped the slight dribble of chocolate syrup on the corners of her mouth. "I just don't, that's all."
"Ah, I don't believe you. There must be a reason why you don't love love."
He smiled. "Well, every time I see you fall in love and see how you might just get hurt in the end, it makes me think that temporary insanity is not worth it. Falling in love is just like taking drugs…you live in dreamland for some time, but when you lose it, the withdrawal symptoms will be enough to make you wish you didn't try it anymore."
"Bitter," she remarked. "Maybe love does that, but I tend to view it the other way."
"And what is that 'other way'?" he asked.
"Do you know that Rembrandt had a severe hand injury that would only bring him tremendous agonizing pain? But he still struggles to paint. Do you know why? He said that the pain passes, but beauty remains. I look at my experiences like that. If I do get hurt, time will heal my pain. But the good things and memories I had with those experiences will linger…will add to the over-all value of my life," she replied.
"You don't have to get hurt. True love doesn't hurt," he pointed out.
"If people don't get hurt, how will they come to realize the real importance of life? If bad times don't come, we won't be able to appreciate the good things we have. For instance, if it doesn't rain at all, how will one appreciate the beauty of glorious sunshine?" she explained. "If I don't get hurt along my journey of finding my true love, how will I learn to take care of that person when I finally find him?"
"Painless love is not necessarily perfect love. Pain reminds us of sacrifice and of thinking about the sake of others before ours. Pain tells us to protect the people we love from it. Pain is beautiful, Eriol-kun."
He was stunned. "You sure are…very brave, saying things like that," he said slowly. "But don't you ever wish to be happy?"
"Pain shows me happiness." She smiled at him tenderly. "All those times I got hurt, only one person stood beside me and comforted me and cursed at those 'idiots' who broke a Daidouji Tomoyo's heart."
He blushed faintly. "Noblesse oblige," he said. Sakura had entrusted Tomoyo to him when she moved to Hong Kong along with her entire family.
"If they didn't hurt me, I won't love you as much as I do now," she said, smiling.
He had to restrain himself from blushing too much. He knew she loved him, as much as she loved Syaoran. Or even Sakura, if he was ambitious.
"The least you can do is not to fall in love too much," he mumbled. "It kills me seeing you get hurt every time."
"But what if this man I meet is the one I have been waiting for all my life? I would forever regret that I have not given him the best of my love when I had the chance. All mine to give, that is how I love," she replied. "No regrets at all."
"Daidouji-san…"
"I take Mark Twain's philosophy. I dance like no one is watching. I sing like no one is listening. I love like I've never been hurt and I live like it's heaven on Earth." She smiled. "And I feel free."
He nodded; he knew that very well. Her face lit up proves it.
"The biggest cynics in love are not those who have never experienced to love because they see how painful it is from a detached third-person or even second-person POV," she continued. "It is those who have already loved and lost, and have already given all hope." She turned somber. "Did Mizuki-sensei hurt you so?"
He shook his head. "No…we are just good friends," he said truthfully.
"Ah, but then, why don't you want to fall in love?" she asked, somewhat frustrated. She really longed to see her friend happy.
"How about you? Why don't you get tired of falling in love over and over?" He really longed to see his friend happy.
She smiled impishly. "I haven't found the right man yet. And you?"
He smiled wanly, looking away from her. "I've found the right woman, and she is waiting for someone else."