LOVE IS...

To digress slightly from the inane ramblings of the last few days and touch on a topic I know we all think about. Love. It has been a rather rollercoaster of a year for me in terms of love and the feelings and outcomes associated with this rather enigmatic and highly volatile emotion. The Cyclist and I broke up a year ago and I thought at that time that I would never in my life be able to breath or function again as a normal human being. The pain was so immense and consuming that to try and think of anything else was tantamount to being in the ring with Muhammad Ali, gloveless and without skills. To get myself off the kitchen floor (which became my safe haven) was one of the biggest challenges I could face at that stage. But I did. And I am here today, functioning and on the road to happiness. The lessons I have learnt in the past year have been hard, eye-opening and scary; but they have taught me about myself and how to poke fear and darkness in the eye with a teaspoon!

I have learnt to breath. One of the most fundamental things we humans do on a daily basis, but the first thing that becomes impossible when your heart is breaking. It seems as though taking in air when your brain has convinced your heart to give up all hope, is like trying to suck molasses through a straw. Although is can be done, the energy and concentration required to perform it is so extreme that your body just cannot do it on the reserve fuel it has just keeping you from stopping breathing all together. Breathing becomes something you have to consciously do, something you have to allot time to perform, otherwise the darkness comes and there is no escaping.

Time. I have learned not to wish time away. Not to say things like “please wake me up in 6 months when this will all be over”. Because it won’t, it will just extend the grieving period for even longer. Time is manageable and always keeps going. That’s its beauty, it is always moving forward and you can break it up into any number of imaginable segments just to manage. But don’t wish it away, each second that passes; painful, heartbreakingly agonizing and scary, is a second you can never get back and in that second that you wished away, you may have just wished away something that could make you smile.

I have learned to listen to my heart. She is always right and for as long as she is the one keeping me alive, I will listen to her until the end. My brain and heart are two very different animals. My brain is rational, she is structured and she performs her tasks with the cutting ability of a criminal lawyer. Her arguments are good on both sides, her research is always thorough and she does not live in the grey area. She is always right in a world of robots, non existent feeling and a flawless emotional justice system. I have learned that we do not live in this system; we live in a system fraught with grey areas and emotions. A world where emotion is what drives economies; greed, lust, power. My heart knows me; she knows every organ in my body; what they do, how efficiently they perform, and what makes them tick. She is the voice in the back of my head saying something that my brain can so easily ignore/rationalize/justify; but she is there and she does not desist until either she has been heard, or what she has said will happen has come to fruition. She is my guide.

Love is the one emotion that fuels all the others into being. It is easily translated into rage, fear, despair. It is the one each and every person seeks out to fulfill a need they may have. It is all around us on a daily basis; but always the most elusive to grasp. It comes in many forms, each unique to the individual, but often coveted under the auspicious that someone’s else’s can also been mine. It cannot. Love is personal, unique and powerful. Let it happen to you. Let it find you and fill you with the unimaginable joys and rewards it can bring. Open your heart to it when you are ready, take a deep breath in and thank the universe that you weren’t wasting time doing something else.

Love is… everything you think it can be and more.