Forever? Forever.

When do we really stop loving someone?

Can we really stop loving someone?

I have always wondered, everything happens in such a hurry today. Quick, hasty declarations of what we believe to be true love. Goodbyes are said equally fast, followed by a few days of mourning. And then we find true love again. The concept of time is so delicately woven with our perception of love. None of us know what love really is, then how can we even attempt to grasp the concept of forever? So deceitful these words are. Forever, eternity, always. They sound so promising, so hopeful, almost borderline incarcerating. The romanticized notion of forever is what we all search for in our lives. Someone to spend our whole lives with, someone to share every moment with, someone to split our food with.

I’m not going to lie, I secretly want that too. In the midst of those dark nights, when I close my eyes and slip into deep slumber, I too dream of a long lasting love, someone who is just mine, and I, just his. But is it worth it? To pin your hopes on every passing love, thinking that they are “the one”?

No, I’m not being cynical. Love is a beautiful thing. It’s a raw, heady emotion. But it’s an intense feeling. When a person falls in love, every emotion becomes amplified. Extreme happiness, extreme sadness, extreme pain, everything resonates inside, ricocheting into the depths of a person’s life. Sometimes, we forget this, we think this intensity is a sign, a mere side effect of being in love. But love is not just about feeling emotions intensely.

I always thought love has more to it. I always loved with the belief that being in love would make me smile like a girl who dresses up for the first time, like a child gurgling with uninhibited laughter, like a woman who forgets that she is flawed, who believes that she is truly beautiful. I always thought love would make me feel like I’m the luckiest girl in the world.

Why hasn’t it felt like that yet? Does love not feel like that? Or have I not really fallen in love yet?

Humans have an inherent flaw, this quality that leads to our downfall. We think we know everything, when in fact we all are lost. Take me for instance. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I want from life. I don’t know if I love who I think I love. I don’t even know if I’ve ever felt what love is.

All I know is that I want to know how it feels. I don’t want to hide anymore.