Love, Hate (+Hurt) IV

Happy Valentine's Day to all! For all the people who've ever loved me and whom I've loved in return, for all the fools in love, the lovebirds, and even the unloved, Happy Valentine's Day to you and may your life be filled with love.

I've always believed that love is forever but today I'll ask myself if it really is so. Sometimes, love seems transient. When we were born, for most of us, our parents loved us. Then we grew a little bigger and found that our siblings and friends love us too. As we shed our childlikeness and step into teenhood, adulthood, we find our parents don't love us that much as we thought. And we probably don't love our parents or our friends as much too because new objects of fancy now capture our attention. We fall in love or for some of us, we fall in like. We've crushes. Others crush on us. And then we find our soulmate and have kids and perpetuate the cycle of transient love.

Love is sweet and bitter at the same time and bittersweet sometimes. All kinds of love are. Sometimes things go wrong and we bash each other up or we hurt each other. But after we thrash things out, things are fine again. And because we've successfully resolved a conflict, hopefully, we progress in our relationship and understand each other a little deeper. Yet for some, the conflicts never really get resolved. The cumulative effect of them is potential cause for ruining the relationship. But the funny thing is that because you've loved before, there's still those sparks of love which can remains.

Sometimes, there isn't much/any love between you and another but by virtue of the fact that you are tied to the person by blood, no matter what this person does, you'll still help him and accept him. That is another kind of love. A weird type which I'm still trying to figure out.

Have you ever met a teacher or mentor or someone who is unrelated to you yet gives you his time and effort unconditionally? That is another kind of love. I've seen many great teachers like that and kudos to them for their relentless effort in reforming, teaching, guiding, training us to be more useful than we were.

At last, we can also love inanimate objects or things. Having a hobby like gardening can be a love for someone. Eating is a love for someone else. And sleeping is definitely something many people I know love.

Living, Leaving, Dying, Parting (生离死别) VII

Today, I entertain a curious notion. Parting is a part of living. A part of the life cycle. What I don't understand is why people cannot accept parting in that case. For myself and for everyone else, I believe, the closer you are to someone, the deeper the hurt you're going to feel when the time comes for parting. It really upsets me at times even when the situation is not one in which your loved one parts into eternity but the other version of parting in which you know you've to move on with another phase of your life.

Ster said when you see Grandpa, you know his time is nearly up. I feel sorry and maybe I'm trying to make amends for the past so I will visit him before he leaves this world. Though I don't like him, I know I'll feel sorry for him and sad when his time comes. It's very weird because we are not even close and for the bulk of my life, he didn't even exist in my consciousness. And it is so very weird because it is not his children who visit him but his grandchildren who are doing so now. Maybe it came back to him for all that he's done. Life comes back full circle.

I try to live my life as best as I can even though I admit sometimes I don't do well. Thinking of death makes me morbid but I know I've to face it someday. Death really tears people up. How would you feel if you know your close one is dying? I find it hard to imagine it unless it's reality. What can you do actually? Nothing. As always, whatever kind of parting it is, I only ask for more time. Kamisama, mo sukoshi dake.