"IS IT LOVE?" - A Day With A Friend

People often ask me what many consider to be "the" relationship question; "So is it love?" or  "Should I stay?" 

And there is....

"But I love him. He's so good to me. Except for when we fight, of course. But I want to stay and work it out. I know we both really love each other. If only we could just.... "

So when your relationship is good, it's very, very good. But when he's bad, he's horrid?

"Yes...!!! That's him..!!! How did you know?"

Because that's everybody my friend, including our loving parents..!!!

"So how do you know if it's love?"

Simple. Can you picture the moment with him or her?

"The "moment"...?"

Yes, the "moment." If you've been in love, you've fallen. And if you've fallen, you can still picture this moment, even if it was forty years ago and even if the relationship only lasted a week or two. If you fell in love, you will still be able to picture the moment even forty years later.....

You see love is a "discovery," not a craft project. It is an amazing moment, not a fine wine nor a hand crafted cigar. Of course, you can fall in love with all these things and so much more. Regardless, when you love someone, you fell, even if you think you never had this moment.

What I'm saying is, all genuine "love" begins with some kind of "eureka" moment, an "aha" experience, an "emergence" of something beautiful. In fact, all famous artists and scientists say this very same thing about their discoveries. And they're right. These moments are the same experience. Of course, in their cases, it's about falling in love with the beauty in something about how our world works, while with us, it's about falling in love with how another person works.

Either way though, falling in love is an instantaneous moment, a splice in your life events which no logic in the world has or will ever explain. One minute, you don't even see this person; the next, you feel pain if you don't see them.

In fact, the poet Rumi describes this best, when he says;

"When I am with you, we stay up all night. 

When you're not here, I can't go to sleep."

"So what if I can't ever remember feeling this moment?" 

Good question. And no one, certainly me, has a right to tell you, you do or do not love someone. Even so, there are truths about love. One of them is, even if the moment came and went in a flash, which is how it usually happens, you ended up with this person somehow and it's not because you are sick or wounded or simply need something they have. This is hog wash. If you ended up with someone in any way other than through an arranged marriage, you had one of these "moments".

"So how could this be true if you have no memory of this moment?"

I can not really say, as there are far too many variables. All these "no memory" events do have one thing in common though. You missed the moment. 

"How?"

You were in shock.

"In shock?"

Yes. And by this, I mean, this moment came at you at such an unexpected time and place that when it hit you, you went into shock and never consciously witnessed it.

"Can such a thing really happen?"

All the time. In fact, there is never a time when someone falls in love wherein this going into shock does not occur to some degree.

"How can you tell?"

The disbelief. Thus, the universal evidence that you went into shock is that you can't believe the event even happened.

Sound familiar?

Of course. In fact, how many times has one of your friends said to you, "I can't believe I like him or her so much" or "I still can't believe we even met." Some people even say these things thirty years later, in words like, "I just knew when I met your father he was the one I'd marry."

"So why doesn't this happen more nowadays?"

Hard to say really. But I'd bet a part of this not happening more nowadays is that we tend to analyze too darn much. 

"Love is not something to reason out. 

In reasoning lies the seeds of doubt."

Nothing kills a new love, or any love for that matter, like trying to reason it out. And my point is still the same; that whether you remember the moment or not, all "love" happens to us in an instant, a magical moment, and this is true whether this love be about our children, our partners, our callings, or our cars....

Obvious differences aside, then, love emerges like a sudden beautiful dreamlike realization. More over, you better get used to it being this way if you ever want your relationship to work.

"So what is "love"...?"

Love is seeing the beauty in anything and in anyone......

"But can't you love someone who is ugly?"

No... No one you love will ever be ugly. This is just not possible. Although your friends might not see what you see in her or him. So perhaps, this person whom you see so much beauty in is not the typical beauty queen type or the movie star leading man. Even so, to you, this person will be beautiful. Why? Because this is what falling in love allows us to see. We get to see what I imagine the Creator of Life sees in each of us; the beauty in every one of us, even in the worst of us.

"Why can't we all see this beauty?"

Well, it not because we are not capable of seeing the real beauty in someone but it just we choose to ignore these so called "boring" stuffs nowadays in this modern world. And some doesn't even believe in true love anymore.... but, if you don't believe it doesn't mean it's not there.....

"What about when you have no feeling for someone anymore. Haven't you fallen out of love?"

You can, to yourself at least. Simply picture the first time you saw this person where you saw the person in a good light and couldn't believe what you saw. If you do this, what you'll see is, you can still see this falling in love moment.

"What if you still can't?"

If you're angry and hate this person, then your hate will block your view. Likewise, if you think back to your first love, no matter how many years have passed, you will still be able to see, and feel, the original moment. However, if this person really let you down or mistreated you or wounded you, then you may not be able to bring the original moment to mind. None the less, this does not mean it is not there. It means simply that something in you is blocking your view.

The point still is, love is a single moment of clarity which never ceases to amaze, given you can picture this moment. And if you can't, then it's simply a matter of this moment being inaccessible, not missing.

"Do you choose that person?"

The answer. No, you don't. Love chooses you.

"But don't you ever choose love?"

No. Never. Ever. And yes, I can hear the crowd murmuring angry rhubarbs against me and against this idea right now.

"How can I be so sure we don't choose?"

Saying you can "choose" someone means you believe you can choose to fall in love. You know how many people punish themselves because they believe they don't fall in love because they just can't choose to let go? Most of the people suffering in relationships. And most of the people who suffer from not having a relationship.

No matter what people think though, the truth is, falling in love is a moment, nothing more. Granted, it's a magical, instantaneous, infectious, addicting moment to be sure. One minute, you are feeling one way about your life. The next, you feel totally different. Still, this moment is one life chose for us, not a moment we chose. So even if we believe we allow it to happen, no one "allows" it to happen. We simply allow it to unfold once it has already happened.

"So what about all the people who say they've never fallen in love, those who say they've just kind of grown to like a person?"

Perhaps what they're saying is the literal truth. Perhaps they're in "like" with this person, and not in "love." Either way, though, my point is, if you're in love, you fell, no matter whether you know the moment or not. More over, no one chooses these moments. Life chooses them for us.....

"Does love die?"

No. Never....

"So why do couples fight and where do the feelings go now?"

Well, it doesn't go anywhere....It just we lose our access to them.

"How...?"

When connection between you and your partner lost in time....When this connection gets lost, and when it stays lost for a long, long time, people assume their love has died. Logical, yes it has. Even so, if love ever existed, this love is still there, albeit mostly buried beneath this logic.

I've seen hundreds of couples, some whom ready to kill each other. Sometimes, too, the two people have reached the point of no return and eventually do split up.

In every case, though, no matter how distant or angry the two people are, if they fell in love, they will have the "falling in love" moment still in them. And if I get them each to picture this moment, even if only briefly, then often, their love gets rekindled similarly to how stoking embers in a recently grayed out fireplace rekindles a fire.

"The point?"

Love does not die. We simply lose our access to it.... 

"Why do some says that the reason the fight is because they are "opposite" characters to each other?

Every person born unique in character in his/her way in this world. Yes its true that life is perfect when you find a person exactly same in character as you. But unfortunately, you can't marry your "clone" is it? 

Besides, just imagine a life without disagreements, opposing ideas and beliefs between you and your spouse. There will be no purpose in such life..... Maybe that's the purpose of life after all, to seek the true beauty in each other and show that love still exist in this world.

"What if the fighting never ends in future? How am I going to live happy with him for the rest of my life fighting?"

Well, there's no exact answer that I could give you. Its up to you.....Its always been all about you....Have some faith in life my friend.......Like how you believe that you are still healthy living in this world and will still be alive tomorrow though you are not GOD to see what's coming next..... Believe that both of you will be happy now and forever.... Believe that your spouse   is the best and believe that both you will work things out if any problem occur in future between you two.....

"And finally?"

Remember one thing, no one is perfect in this world. Accept the person you love they way he/she is, as if you want him/her to accept you as the way you are. Love is not about finding your "dream" person, it's all about being yourself and seeking your "dream" person in your partner.... Love is when you look at your spouse after 40 years of marriage life and still think he/she is the most beautiful person you ever met in your life.... Life is all about living the moment... So, never waste them worrying about the blind future your never know.....