Falling In Love: Is It Worth It?

Sometimes in the past, late at night, when it's too quiet to pretend, I worry if I believe in anything at all or at least in anything beautiful. I believed in change because it is permanent. I believed in pain because it is sometimes physical. I believe in anger because it can consume you. But I was not sure I can believe in either love or trust. I could not then understand these two things most people build their dreams on.

Love fails to be unconditional by that one condition itself. It ends when we fall out of it. Then, we claim it never was love because love shouldn't die. It is forever. But when it becomes a routine (like saying "I love you" for instance), love does die. Lastly, when love turns selfish, confusing and burdensome, it isn't beautiful anymore.

As for trust, it was self-explanatory until I doubted it. When curiosity gives way to suspicion, betrayal isn't far behind. For every failed judgment we ask ourselves: "Did I trust too little or too much?". It is difficult to shut up every question in favor of complete trust, only to realize too late something you could have known had you only asked. Where does love and trust start and end?

I have seen hundreds of people disappointed over unfulfilling relationships. I have seen passion turn into poison. I have grieved with them for the love they lost or never found. We seem to love so much, but now it's gone. We ask ourselves: "Why do I feel so lonely even if he's right beside me? Why can't out relationship be more than this?".

I think all people have at one point in their life experienced the painful realization of a love unrequited. Even with all the discouragement, even with all the well-intentioned advice from friends, falling in love is a no-going-back event. Unfortunately, time can't be reversed.

Now, falling in love in itself is doubted by people around you. They cannot feel the warmth that consumes you. They cannot ache with the turbulent and confusing anxiety and joy that grips you. They do not know that mental stress you experience trying to rationalize your emotions. They cannot believe that you do not want to be in love with a person who doesn't love you back. Oftentimes, people in love are painted as puppies following their loved ones at a distance and enjoying it. Oftentimes, people in love are misunderstood.

Who can enjoy running around with your heart on your sleeve? It's like trying to cross a tightrope and always falling into jagged cliffs because you are nervous, oh so nervous! Loving and loving without getting any response can be destructive to anyone. It is a thousand deaths every time. Its an "unmourned" for death because no one else can understand.

Love is not sustained by hope but by wishes. There's a difference. No matter how perverse, people suffering from unrequited love try to get out of it while secretly wishing that he'd give a sign to show it isn't hopeless. In desperation, unrequited lovers can even imagine signs if only to remain sane.

How can you love a brick wall? A dead end? A slavery without any sign of salvation? How foolish! How unreasonable! Unfortunately, how human too!

"Why won't he love me? What is wrong with me?", scattered thoughts echoing such pain are not exactly abnormal. Even the best-looking, best-hearted people can't always expect others to love them back. Why? People sometimes need to feel unloved by everyone so that they learn to love themselves.

There is nothing wrong with unrequited love. It happens all the time. I won't delude you into thinking that if he can't love you back he is not worth it. In fact, believe that he is. He is worth it all: the headaches, the anxiety, the embarassment, etc. He is worth it because, like you, he needs others loving him. This sounds funny but the world is round for a reason. We are all part of a circle. If you love him and he loves someone else, just think of whom you're hurting by loving him. It's a cycle. Whose love are you not returning?

I know we can love deeply, tenderly and lastingly. I have seen such love and I have felt such love myself. I learned that, aside from love and trust, a fulfilling relationship begins when two people make their time together their number one priority. If we hope to find love, we must first find time for loving. Many couples experienced a tragic moment together that taught them to value their time together. How we see our partners often depends on how we are than how they are. We are not audience but participant observers in each other's lives.

I used to ask myself where the love between my ex-boyfriend and I had gone. Maybe it's because we forgot that we are the ones who make it. Love was not out there. It was here between my ex and me. Before, I was him as a very sweet, caring, patient, and loyal person. But now it's different. It seemed like I'm the only one who does the loving. He really changed a lot. People really do change. Our hurtful and infantile arguments illustrate how we, instead of looking for love, may look for flaws. We spent the relationship struggling to change other's minds. But I realized it a little too late.

We must accept that there are many realities and learn to accept different points of view. My ex then became my eye-opener. He saw what I never could, and do the same for him. We made points of view between the two of us that's totally different from either one of us. He was there with me when it can be too cold or too warm. Both of us were restless, yearning for more than what we had, what we were. Everything was unbalanced and unpredictable. In almost imperfect setting, two not-so-perfect people shared something so very simple---a perfectly imperfect friendship---it's enough. At least he gave me something beautiful to believe in (love and trust).

I have felt so much pain during the relationship with my ex. It was hard to accept that I have loved someone who stopped loving me. Now, I couldn't help ask myself why do I no longer believe those two beautiful ideas (love and trust). Why can't I give myself a chance to be in love again? Maybe I'm just too scared. Or perhaps, maybe because I had been waiting for a perfect moment, a perfect someone, and a perfect me. maybe because I had always felt that beliefs ought to be perfect---ideal, so to speak ugh!

At the end of the day, when all is said and done, loving without being loved back is the best thing to do because feeling so much pain, I learn to heal; knowing so much fear, I learn to stand up to anything, carrying so much sadness, I learn to glorify in joy.

Love is not destroyed by a single failure or won by a single caress. It is a lifetime venture in which we're always learning, discovering and growing.

Lastly, this may be a cliché but there is someone who is right for you (and even for me), and even if he's not, he'd still be right because loving doesn't make sense until you accept it and make it real.

"When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, andthen it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part, because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness; it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day, it's not laying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No, that is just being in love, which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love, itself, is what is left over when being in love has burned away. Doesn't sound very exciting does it? But, it is. "

Love comes

love goes

But a certain feeling never lets me be

Somehow I know

Quite a part of me's unchanged

since you've been gone

Like a sturdy tree that's seen a thousand seasons

I still shed my leaves in winter

To grow them back in spring

To welcome life again

To welcome you

So goes my life

Still believing dreams of having you around

Too bad, memories

Feed the mind and not the heart where I want you to be

So I ask myself what you have left behind for me

To go on each day to live as ifI had you once again

What else is there that's real

But all the pain that I feel?

So let the pain remain forever in my heart

For every throb it brings is

One more moment spent with you

I'll let the pain bring on the rain

If that's the only way

If there's no other way to be with you again