Monday, November 07, 2005
so... love, right?
it's an ever-complicated subject, yet something that ought to be so simple. but thoughts muddle it, and even feelings are quite fickle and unreliable. so how do you know? how do you choose and say "i love you... in spite of." the unconditional sense of it... at some point in the beginning, there must have been some sort of condition. at least something that kept you there in the first place. whether she was the cute girl or he was the one that showed you the world... there was something. but what, what is that?
friends are getting married left and right, as you may have noticed. they all have this bright-eyed and wonderful outlook of each other. newlyweds, right? my girl friends all share this same sentiment of "i'm the luckiest girl in the world!" i have yet to discover such a sentiment within me. but is that the only way to go? i know of 2 significant women in my family, who had to make flat decisions in their life. they had to come to terms with their potential husbands at some point and despite the things they dislike about them, they were able to say, "he's a good man, yes, i want to marry him/he's the one i choose to be with." now maybe we were talking about love in a different context as what i'm speaking of now. i have to ask them about the falling-in-love/luckiest-girl-in-the-world kind of sentiment in the beginning. but i know they share an incredible love with their spouses now. so that is also good in the long run, right? but it's different... it certainly not the whole, i'm the luckiest girl in the world/head over heels/i'll follow you anywhere/as long as i have you, nothing else matters kind of love. it's a very grounded decision in choosing the partnership and that person. but it's not the highly emotional, almost brainlessness of "falling" in love.
and what is that... falling...? i've learned that real and true love is not a falling, not one that is out of your control. it's a good thing, because that also gives rise to falling out of love. both concepts are based on emotions, which are fickle. hence, the change, the falling in and falling out... as if it's out of your control. but love, real love, chooses that person despite imperfections and especially despite times of when you don't think it'll work, in order to keep working at it. but to begin with... how do you know that this person is who you can keep working at it with? because honestly, i'm a pretty tolerant person. i can keep going for years with a person's habits that i dislike. there are petty little things that some people would discount a potential significant other for, that i can just put up with. and there'll always be some of that right? i come from a family and an upbringing of working with what you have and being satisfied with it. i wasn't brought up to want or desire anything extravagant or impractical because we never had those things. we make do with what we have. i can deal with discomfort, i can deal with less-than-ideal things. i have a high tolerance of pain and discomfort... and really, i'm okay. so yes, i try. i try really really hard to make things work. hangang pigang piga na talaga ang relationship. (until i've squeezed everything out of the relationship). and eventually, yea, it isn't enough. or i can't take it anymore and want out.
i feel like i've lost my point along the way in this post. or maybe i didn't really have a point at all. these days, i often hear the term, "you deserve to be treated better/all the best." i also hear, "don't settle." that latter phrase has two different implications. don't settle for being treated less than you deserve. and don't settle for just comfort/convenience. i discover that i have issues with both of these concepts... deserve... defined specifically as to be worthy of merit, synonymous to earn. so what is it exactly that i deserve? and what kind of treatment have i earned? for that matter, what i have i done exactly to "earn" this treatment. (hmmm, i sense low self-esteem issues in those questions. something to think about.) and settle... i never saw any of the my relationships as settling. i always saw the goodness/greatness in the people i was with and i never looked at it as if i'm getting less than what i deserve. but i suppose it's pretty hard to gauge if you're getting less than you deserve if you haven't defined exactly what you do deserve. as for settling for comfort/convenience... sometimes that is exactly the beautiful thing about being with someone. that life is just so easy and comfortable with that person. and sometimes that is exactly what you like about him. but is that a bad thing? isn't there a higher chance of it lasting a lifetime of happiness, a longer longevity? and those are always the guys who get dumped in those movies like sweet home alabama and the notebook. freaking great guys who get dumped for other guys who the girl really fights with... what is that? *sigh*
love... it's certainly not as simple as boy meets girl, courts her, meets her parents, she says yes and they live happily with 2.5 kids and a dog in suburbia.
friends are getting married left and right, as you may have noticed. they all have this bright-eyed and wonderful outlook of each other. newlyweds, right? my girl friends all share this same sentiment of "i'm the luckiest girl in the world!" i have yet to discover such a sentiment within me. but is that the only way to go? i know of 2 significant women in my family, who had to make flat decisions in their life. they had to come to terms with their potential husbands at some point and despite the things they dislike about them, they were able to say, "he's a good man, yes, i want to marry him/he's the one i choose to be with." now maybe we were talking about love in a different context as what i'm speaking of now. i have to ask them about the falling-in-love/luckiest-girl-in-the-world kind of sentiment in the beginning. but i know they share an incredible love with their spouses now. so that is also good in the long run, right? but it's different... it certainly not the whole, i'm the luckiest girl in the world/head over heels/i'll follow you anywhere/as long as i have you, nothing else matters kind of love. it's a very grounded decision in choosing the partnership and that person. but it's not the highly emotional, almost brainlessness of "falling" in love.
and what is that... falling...? i've learned that real and true love is not a falling, not one that is out of your control. it's a good thing, because that also gives rise to falling out of love. both concepts are based on emotions, which are fickle. hence, the change, the falling in and falling out... as if it's out of your control. but love, real love, chooses that person despite imperfections and especially despite times of when you don't think it'll work, in order to keep working at it. but to begin with... how do you know that this person is who you can keep working at it with? because honestly, i'm a pretty tolerant person. i can keep going for years with a person's habits that i dislike. there are petty little things that some people would discount a potential significant other for, that i can just put up with. and there'll always be some of that right? i come from a family and an upbringing of working with what you have and being satisfied with it. i wasn't brought up to want or desire anything extravagant or impractical because we never had those things. we make do with what we have. i can deal with discomfort, i can deal with less-than-ideal things. i have a high tolerance of pain and discomfort... and really, i'm okay. so yes, i try. i try really really hard to make things work. hangang pigang piga na talaga ang relationship. (until i've squeezed everything out of the relationship). and eventually, yea, it isn't enough. or i can't take it anymore and want out.
i feel like i've lost my point along the way in this post. or maybe i didn't really have a point at all. these days, i often hear the term, "you deserve to be treated better/all the best." i also hear, "don't settle." that latter phrase has two different implications. don't settle for being treated less than you deserve. and don't settle for just comfort/convenience. i discover that i have issues with both of these concepts... deserve... defined specifically as to be worthy of merit, synonymous to earn. so what is it exactly that i deserve? and what kind of treatment have i earned? for that matter, what i have i done exactly to "earn" this treatment. (hmmm, i sense low self-esteem issues in those questions. something to think about.) and settle... i never saw any of the my relationships as settling. i always saw the goodness/greatness in the people i was with and i never looked at it as if i'm getting less than what i deserve. but i suppose it's pretty hard to gauge if you're getting less than you deserve if you haven't defined exactly what you do deserve. as for settling for comfort/convenience... sometimes that is exactly the beautiful thing about being with someone. that life is just so easy and comfortable with that person. and sometimes that is exactly what you like about him. but is that a bad thing? isn't there a higher chance of it lasting a lifetime of happiness, a longer longevity? and those are always the guys who get dumped in those movies like sweet home alabama and the notebook. freaking great guys who get dumped for other guys who the girl really fights with... what is that? *sigh*
love... it's certainly not as simple as boy meets girl, courts her, meets her parents, she says yes and they live happily with 2.5 kids and a dog in suburbia.
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quotable quotes
-
"To try is to risk failure. But risk must be taken because the
greatest hazard of life is to risk nothing. The person who risks
nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. He may avoid
suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change,
grow, live, and love."
~unknown
"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues."
~ Abraham Lincoln
"live a life that others will remember years from now, NOT because it pointed to you but because of how it pointed to the One who made you."
~ Mark Hart, the Bible Geek
"we grow up learning to become self-reliant, but really we need to be God-reliant"
"we could learn a lot from crayons: some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names, and all are different colors....but they all exist very nicely in the same box"
"never wound hearts that love u, never give them the endless pain, because wounded hearts are like roses that never bloom"
"there comes a time when we have to stop loving someone not because that person has stopped loving us but because we have found out that they'd be happier if we'd let go"
