Day 6 – About Love – 1

Last few days, love has been on my mind a lot. I have been meeting people, lots of them. Interesting, mostly; engaging with them. However, I have realized that I have met and interacted with so many men by now that I know exactly what kind of a man I want. However, what I call my preferences or likings, people call a checklist. People suggest that I should let go of the checklists and let them go and go with the flow instead.

Every time I try letting go of the checklist, I realize that the other person isn’t good enough for me. Then, when I don’t let go of the checklist, I am not good enough.

Apparently, NOTHING EVER is good enough: D Hence, I go on bitching about pretty much everyone I claim to have loved, family, friends, lovers, even myself; I keep doubting myself. Am I never going to be enough? Am I ever going to be enough?

Is it not enough that I do not judge you or your other partners without a moral compass? Is it not enough that I am always there when you need me, even when I may be dying myself. Is it not enough that I want you to be happy and that I don’t hold you answerable for my well-being? Is it not enough that I don’t hold you responsible for my grief or sadness? Is it not enough for all of us to live and love unconditionally? What more must I do?

However, all of that said, I finally get tired of being in the victim mode and soon stepped out of it. What helped me was binge watching the series of Troy on Netflix.

I see those trying to have, those trying to love, those resisting it and then those who give in to it, even justify it, defend it and go to a war for it. I see a entire full-scale range of emotions and people like Odysseus having to choose between personal love and the larger love for humanity. I see ethics going to hell, I see ethics being lived up to and yet love surviving and dying in the same moment together.
After, all that, in the very last scene, 4 people have survived a LONG war where everyone else has been destroyed, captured, and taken. One of them, a shepherd’s girl hugs a 9 years old child, holds him in her arms and whispers… You’re alive.

In that moment, all my self-doubt has gone away. I realized that it is a blessing to love and to live. It is a blessing to be loved. It’s a privilege and not something to be taken for granted. All my illusions about love had gone away and then today I have love speaking to me in silent whispers. Love shows me the glimpses into its true nature occasionally.  Here’s one of those glimpses for you.

© Anupama 2018