Falling In Love....

It is a mystery why we fall in love. 

It is a mystery how it happens. 

It is a mystery when it comes. 

It is a mystery why some love grows and it is a mystery why some love fails.

You can analyze this mystery and look for reasons and causes, but you will never do anymore than take the life out of the experience.

Just as life itself is more than the sum of the bones and muscles and electrical impulses in the body, love is more than the sum of the interests and attractions and commonalities that two people share.

And just as life is a gift that comes and goes in its own time, so too, the coming of love must be taken as an unfathomable gift that cannot be questioned in its ways.

Sometimes, hopefully at least once in your life - the gift of love will come to you in full flower, and you will take hold of it and celebrate it in all inexpressible beauty. This is the dream we all share.

More often, it will come and take hold of you, celebrate you for a brief moment, then move on.

When this happens to young people, they too often try to grasp the love and hold it to them, refusing to see that it is gift that is freely given and a gift that just as freely, moves away.

When they fall out of love, or the person they love feels the spirit of love leaving, they try desperately to reclaim the love that is lost rather than accepting the gift for what it was, then moving on.

They want answers where there are no answers. They want to know what is wrong in them that makes the other person no longer love them, or they try to get their lover to change, thinking that if some small things were different, love would bloom again.

They blame their circumstances and say that if they go far away and start a new life together, their love will grow.

They try anything to give meaning to what happened. But there is no meaning beyond the love itself, and until they accept its own mysterious ways, they live in a sea of misery.

You need to know this about love, and to accept it.
You need to treat what it brings you with kindness.

If you find yourself in love with someone who does not love you, be gentle with yourself. There is nothing wrong with you. Love just didn't choose to rest in the other person's heart.

If you find someone else in love with you and you don't love her, feel honored that love came and called at your door, but gently refuse the gift you cannot return. Do not take advantage, do not cause pain. How you deal with love is how you deal with you, and all our hearts feel the same pains and joys, even if our lives and ways are different.

If you fall in love with another, and she falls in love with you, and then love chooses to leave, do not try to reclaim it or to assess blame. Let it go. There is a reason and there is a meaning. You will know in time.

Remember that you don't choose love. Love chooses you. All you can really do is accept it for all its mystery when it comes into your life. Feel the way it fills you to overflowing, then reach out and give it away.

Give it back to the person who brought it alive in you. Give it to others who deem it poor in spirit. Give it to the world around you in anyway you can. This is where many lovers go wrong. Having been so long without love, they understand love only as a need. They see their hearts as empty places that will be filled by love, and they begin to look at love as something that flows to them rather than from them.

The first blush of new love is filled to overflowing, but as their love cools, they revert to seeing their love as a need. They cease to be someone who generates love and instead becomes someone who seeks love. They forget that the secret of love is that it is a gift, and that it can be made to grow only by giving it away..

Remember this, and keep it to your heart. Love has its own time, its own seasons, and its own reasons for coming and going. You cannot bribe it or coerce it, or reason it into staying. You can only embrace it when it arrives and give it away when it comes to you. But if it choose to leave from your heart or from the heart of your lover, there is nothing you can do and there is nothing you should do.

Love always has been and always will be a mystery.
Be glad that it came to live for a moment in your life.

If you keep your heart open, it will come again.

But... 

We are only human and being thus, we feel. We feel the pain of love lost, we feel the pain of love unrequited, and for some of us, we feel the pain so much that we understand the hurt a person has in his heart to make him climb over a ledge - and jump. Perhaps it be good that we could just forget a love by defeating our sense of worth and submit that love is beyond our control; that it is a harsh reality of life. But I cannot and, though it hurts so, I am glad of it. Otherwise, love would be just one more corporeal object of life, rather than the enigmatic and wondrous mystery that it really is - gossamer wings, angel hair, soft sunshine. I cannot because I feel. If you keep your heart open, it might come again. But it would not be the same - the way you look at life, the way you look at love, the way you look at yourself. It would never be the same. Learn not to procrastinate the matters of the heart, for eventually, it will come back to haunt you with icy fingers. Instead, learn to feel, learn to cry, learn to embrace and to accept it... Then learn to love yourself.

Broken Promises....

What is a promise of love? And how do you keep it?

I have been pondering over this question for a few weeks now, but have not been able to come to a proper conclusion. And it is nagging at the back of my head, refusing to let up.

A promise of love is, in it's very essence, an oxymoron. It is a lie - the biggest, most vicious lie one could ever tell.

"I'll always love you...".
"I'll never leave you..."
"You'll always be the only one that I love..."

All the things we whisper and share when we are in our relationships, all the promises that we make, hold true only while we are in love. As we fall helplessly into love, we, too, fall helplessly out of it. It is a feeling beyond our control. These promises are beautiful, but the moment the love dies, they shatter into a thousand glass shards. Hurting. Wounding. Killing.

And no matter how hard we might want to keep them, they now count for naught. In fact, keeping a promise of love that has died is a even greater sin.

Now. How do you stop yourself from making promises when you're in love? I don't know either.

So. If someone makes you a promise, listen and smile, for they have the power to make you happy and glow with warmth. But always remember:

One of the most dangerous things you can ask for when it comes to love, is a warranty card.

Make only the promises you can keep.


Chinese singer Faye Wong sings in one of her ethereal laments:

Who does not want me, I do not want
Who does not love me, I do not love
When I turn off the light
All the shadows will cease to exist

Today. I bought Alanis' new album and watched Mel Gibson's new movie.

It had rained earlier and the night air was cool and balmy. I took a long walk, shaded from the drizzle by the giant trees that lined both sides of the roads. I used to travel this way.

After my dinner , hands in my pockets, I walked home.

It's been a long time since I saw the moon. 

Growing Up....

It seems to me that my life has been one big movie. There have been its ups and downs, its frogs and prince charmings. But it's sad to see that the ending to this movie may not be what I want to make it.

I guess I always planned on everything being so easy for me. I was labled as being smart and funny (witty actually is a better word) when I was younger. Have I lost the sense of both along with my youth? I am unsure of that, as I am unsure of so many things.

The night sky has become only that to me these days, whereas before, it held some sort of mystery; almost magic when the stars shone so brightly, and the crickets sang their night songs. Now, I walk along the streets with its blackness over my head, and I hardly even give it a second chance.

When I was a child, I had never dreamnt that growing older would give me a different perspective on things. I took for granted the fact that as a child, I saw through eyes that held nothing but wonder. I have gained new insight, but have forgotten the longing to grow wings and fly away from this place. I have lost the sense of dreaming without limits.

It seems like such a short time ago that my nights consisted of playing hide-and-go-seek with friends within my neighborhood. The tight knit bond that held us together has unraveled in so many different dirrections. Of course we all keep in touch, but a distance has been placed between us. Not the distance of location, but the changes that come with getting older. We aren't care free kids any more with all the time in the world. We have become more than that, and it saddens me to see that our separate lives have separated us from one another.

We grew up.