One story at a time

What is it? Is it a feeling? A verb? A metaphor? Or absolute crap? The answers vary and honestly none of them are wrong.

The definition and the context of this word keeps altering throughout one’s life. For me though, love has been my friend and a foe since a weekend trip at age 12. The trip was arranged by my French tuition teacher to her beach house two hours away from Mumbai. Her nephew who at the time would be around 15 years old was there too. I still remember his brown eyes, black hair that looked brown in the sun, playful eyes and that mischievous laugh. That was the first time I officially felt it. The feeling when you have a hopeless crush on someone? Yeah, i thought that was love. I could only speak two words to him, yes and no and I don’t even remember the questions. Also, I never met the guy after that trip. But if you ask me how long after the trip did i fantasise about him being my Romeo? You guessed it right, I am not answering that.

A decade and a half later here i am, writing this blog thinking about how that 12 year old girl had no idea what life had in store for her. If only i could tell her that love is not just the butterflies in your belly, the bad decisions you make in it’s name, the sweet nothings that guy texted you or even planning how many kids you’ll have.

I think It’s FAITH.

Describe faith you ask? It’s what I saw when I was sixteen, my mom had with God. At first, I thought she’s obsessed, then I thought it’s because she’s in need of help, but no, through years that followed, even when things worked for her, her relationship with God never faltered, that’s when I realised, she’s faithful to Him. I am not a very religious person but today when I look back, he never failed her too.

Every time I look at people who have been married for decades or even half a century talking about their marriage, they have a common thing to say. “The person you love will change, you will change too & so will the love”, so how are they still together after all these years? It’s not just love or remembering why they got married in the first place, it’s faith.

Even in an unhappy relation, when there are multiple reasons staring you right in your face why this bond isn’t good, a person always sticks around longer than needed because he/she has faith in the other person or that relation.

This is love for me. Like i said before, it may mean absolute crap to you. But there has to be something in your life you are faithful to. Something you have been going back to time and again for an escape. It makes you free, makes your breath full, takes off the black cloud off of your head. The subject may change with time but there’ll always be something or someone you love.

Love cannot be found where it doesn’t exist, nor can it be hidden where it truly does

Kissing a fool