because we love...

i have been thinking lately of this seemingly innocuous word called ‘love’.
a puny runt of a four letter world which assumes gargantuan proportions in our insignificant lives and pretty much cracks the whip and gets us crawling, begging for more. i understand the love that i feel for my parents. that’s easy to explain. it is there. it is. there is no threat to it.
but what about the entire notion of romantic love? here i am stumped. what is it that makes this different? fragile? and so much more alluring?
i know you are saying it is the difference that comes with bonds that are forged by blood and bonds that we choose to make.
that’s interesting. so what is given to me without having consulted me or my having anything at all to do with it, is more secure and permanent than what i willingly, pick and choose as my own.
how the hell does that work?
love. the word is so overrated and abused that it hardly ever comes easily to me even now.
love. the more i say it, the emptier it rings.
let me try this harder. love. what does it mean when one says, “i love you”?
no really. what does it mean? for some it means that “i am so ensconced within you that my every breath, waking and sleeping thought, my sanity, my delusion, the entire fabric of my universe is wrapped around you”. haven’t we all loved like that at least once in our life? i think love like this sucks the life breath out of you, but it is integral to evolving into a better human being. a necessary evil. (lets squeeze the air and the living daylights out of your poor little heart and lungs, so we can make some space for the new, improved you.)
for others it may mean, “i need to know you are well, at peace, living life by terms that are your own, that you are happy”. as simple as that. i admire love like this. it sparkles and skips so lightly and free.

for me, i guess it means that, “i like you so terribly much that i will look out for you as best as i can, i like looking at your face and all the flickers of thoughts that flit over it. i will defend you, yet be your biggest critic, expect the best and not settle for any less from you, the more i love you the more will you make me angry”.

but i am drifting here. i was rambling about what this affliction is?
i think most of us confuse love with ownership.
i love it because it is mine.
i love it so it shall be mine.
i love it so it can be no one else’s.
in most cases this is the scenario i find.
i love because i am loved.
i think most of our floundering relationships begin this way. it is so flattering to be admired. somewhere i think we are bumbling little children who go about desperately seeking the assurance, attention and warmth that we found as infants, we go about looking for pseudo-parents in our partners, wishing and hoping that we will be held, hugged and taken care of once again. god knows it is hard to be an adult.

apart from the mysterious life force that wakes us up from the deepest of sleep every morning, love, is the only other fuel that keeps us alive.
and i don’t mean this in a mushy sense at all.
we might bask in it or be cantankerous about it, be elated and smile at nothing in particular or be weighed down by sorrow and shun everyone else…we live, breathe, weep, puke, skip, dance, kill, seduce, conspire, dream, hope, falter, play, sing… because we love.