On loving someone. Post 15
How do you insulate yourself from getting hurt when you open up your heart to somebody and admit (even to yourself) that you love them? You don’t.
Loving someone (need not necessarily be romantic love, it can be love for a child, a friend, a sibling, a mate, a partner) is like telling them “I trust you completely and fully. I expect you to be around when things are rough for me. I want you to hold my hand and be there for me. Please do not let me down.” It is opening up your most vulnerable inner self to them, giving them fully the power to destroy you, but knowing that they will not.
Loving someone always comes with expectations. Elizabeth Stone had said
“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
You can strike out the words ‘have a child’ and replace it with ‘to love someone’. The quote would still hold true.
When the loved one, the object of our affections ,does not react the way we expect them to, we feel deeply hurt. It is almost as if we’re saying “How can you do this to me?! I gave you my heart.” We feel upset, abandoned, lost, let down.
Most spiritual Gurus advise us to practise detachment when it comes to love. They tell us not to have expectations. But I do think one has to be either a Mother Teresa or a Buddha to love without having any expectations. I think it is only human to expect love to be reciprocated, to expect people to be around, to expect a hundred little things from the ones you love.
If love causes so much hurt, so much pain, why love at all? Why not live a life, detached from everyone, with a tight barbed fence around your heart, so that you let no-one in? The answer on contemplation becomes clear. The joy love brings, the hope it fuels, the feeling it reinforces that you can do anything really and the heights you reach when your loved ones push you on, is something truly incomparable to any feeling in the world.
Close your eyes and think of someone you truly love. The very thoughts fill you with joy, happiness, and pure delight. (And if you cannot have them by your side anymore, it is deep sorrow in equal measure that one feels).
Loving someone is giving away control of a small part of your life to them. Your happiness is in their hands. How terrifying it is! Yet how heady! No surprise then that hundreds of writers, artists, poets have written reams and reams on this topic. It is eternal. It is always fresh. And everybody loves a love-story.
Love—one truly cannot escape it. Everyone succumbs to it, at one point or the other, in their life. It is only human to.
When you love someone, you hand over the reins of your life to them.
And you hope like hell, they will not let go.
© 2011 Preeti Shenoy
How true. The feeling is ethereal...
ReplyDelete'It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all'
ReplyDeletewas it Wilde? I love that chap!
Nice post..I've been coming across a lot of discussions on love lately..
sounds true...:)
ReplyDeleteCompletely true... its a terrifying but wonderful feeling :)
ReplyDelete'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
ReplyDeleteAlfred Lord Tennyson
Preeti,Your post says exactly the same...in a beautiful way...:)
This is lovely and beautiful Preeti, I wonder how you express so well! True, love is beautiful and painful at the same time.
ReplyDeleteSuperb writing !
ReplyDeleteWell written Preethi!!! Love makes you vulnerable...but we learn to live with that, don't we?
ReplyDeleteHits a nerve this one. I experienced this once before but that didn't stop me from being my cheerful self. And I got hurt, yet again. You're SO right. We're not s Like you
ReplyDeletehmmm...To put it simply, I felt a little better after reading this.
ReplyDeleteVery nicely written Preethi.
ReplyDeleteLove sometimes comes with a shade of possessiveness and the fear of losing the person we love brings with it the mistrust. This triggers the "What if?" scenarios. How good would it be if everybody understood this. This post reminds me of reading this - "When you love somebody, let them free. If they come back to you, they are yours. If not they were never meant to be".
Hey,
ReplyDeleteThis post reminds me of a quote from Grey's Anatomy, which goes something like this:
"Intimacy is a four syllable word for "Here is my heart and soul, please grind them into hamburger, and enjoy."
It's fearful to let someone enter your heart, because you can be very sure, that it wont be the same way, when they choose to leave it! :)
Good one :)
Rach: Lovely quote you shared there! Thanks for th compliments :)
ReplyDeleteDee: Mistrust really kills a relationship.
Bharath: Glad it made you glad :) Are you related to Bhupesh Balakrishnan who commented above?
Nandana: thanks :) what was the last sentence again? Did not get that.
Nilu: Sometimes. Sometimes it breaks our hearts.
Suman: I love you! :) :) Thanks a ton :)
ReplyDeleteNiharika: I love you too :) Thanks so much!! :)
Bhupesh: thanks so much. Is Bharath Balakrishnan who commented below related to you?
Sucheta:Bharath answered you. Tennyson it was. Thanks!
Anusha: Sometimes the feeling is so darn depressing.
Love is definitely in the air! Have been coming across so many love stories...
ReplyDeletelovely post.....
ReplyDeleteLove really gives us the courage to stand up for anything!!!!
Love really has a great power!!!!!
Yes, we expect a lot from our loved ones. Then it's followed by pain and hurt. But I don't think we'll ever regret that time when we were in love. Love can be very powerful and at times love can turn us blind too.
ReplyDeleteHey Preeti....as always a thought provoking thing from ur side..firstly i'll appreciate the way u put d deep feelings in simple words. U r rite in someway that while we love some one..be it any1..our friends..mates..partners.parents..kids.whosover..we shouldn't expect..U said we for loving unconditionally or widout expectations one has to be Mother Teresa or Buddha..but i hv a point here..doesnt OUR PARENTS love us widout expectations( we sometimes dnt turn up the way they want us to be..but still the intensity of their love is same).I hope u got my point wot i want to say..yes i agree wid u that loving some1 takes hell out of us..in senseof pain n hapiness both..
ReplyDeleteCheers to ur work..
Love
Nidhi...:)
Deep insights, Preeti!
ReplyDeleteAs I see it, the term "love" is one case of the word "relationship" which in turn is like a "Coin" - when you call it right, that is the "relationship that you would love" and when you call it wrong, it is the inverse!
Does this make sense, Preeti?
Titus: Have no clue what you said but thanks for the comment :)
ReplyDeleteNidhi: Thanks :) Parental love also comes with expectations.
Ariel: Yes--sometimes it indeed can make us blind.
Gayu: I agree! Love gives us wings!
Prerna : Don't know if its in the air, I wanted to write on an universal topic.
very nice preeti.. love your inspiring thoughts...:))
ReplyDeleteLoved this one. It is so true preeti. :) :)
ReplyDelete"It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" - sweet to listen and good to say such quotes..but when get rejected by someone you madly loved,its bitter and would like totally remove memory out of your system.
ReplyDeletenobody teaches you how to fall in love.. nobody teaches mom to love her baby.. its not something you "do". this is something that happens..on similar vien compassion of Buddha is not something you can "practice", it has to happen...
till then keep "loving" people around you and make them feel happy , that is the only way you can be happy.but don't make a love a moral necessity
This is such a beautiful post. I know how if feels to love with your whole heart and then feel so totally let down with their sudden insensitive approach towards us, the moment they have somebody new in their life. We cease to exist and all the memories we shared are left to strangle us for the rest of our life.
ReplyDeleteThis is really a beautiful post. Love is eternal. So also the pain that comes with it. It does hurt when the person you love does not stand beside you, leaves you all alone....... But we still cant jus stop loving them..
ReplyDeleteEvery single word of this post is simply awesome... Gr8 post. Keep it up. All the best.