It simply is love ...

To love someone is to acknowledge the role they have played in our lives. To recognize that our paths crossed at some point and that we have been co-travellers for a while in life. To love someone is to accept the truth of interconnectedness of all the people who touch our lives into the tapestry of our existence. To love someone is to accept and acknowledge the existence of a part of us in them and a part of them in us.

From our parents, family, first loves, childhood buddies, best friends, classmates, broken loves, discarded friends, friends turned enemies, online friends, colleagues, clients, people whom we have forgotten, people who have forgotten us, people who ignore us now, people who turn their back on us and whom we ignore and turn our backs on, people we just smile at, people we see past… they are all there in the story of our lives and we in theirs.

We get hurt, angry or feel violated when ‘they’ change their promise of ‘who they seemed’ to ‘who they suddenly become’. When their suitability, usability or conformity changes, it confuses us and we fight to re-establish the original image we agreed to have of them. We do the same to them when we change. But we will always be the victim, the one who was wronged. Even when we ignore, wear a mask or hurt a loved one, it is almost like another alternate being descends on us. Someone truly not us.

So does love really go away? Can love ever go away? Can people ever fade away? Can their influence or memory be just pretended away?


Why do we wear masks? Why do we squirm at memories that don’t suit us? Why do we not acknowledge the sides to us that aren’t or weren’t heroic? Why can’t we say sorry? Why can’t we start again? Why do we ignore those who reach out? Why do we put our hands at the back and refuse to shake hands, or meet someone’s eyes?

We are not scared of what we will find there. We are scared that we will not measure up in our own eyes. We are scared of what they will no longer find in us perhaps? We are scared of old discomforts and insecurities arising in us again. We are scared of being vulnerable.

We get angry when they persist, feel violated when they remind us of their affection and refuse to acknowledge them. The more real and genuine they are, the more we push them away. We abuse, ignore, and ridicule their overtures of affection as they force us to remember a better us. They remind us of the promises we failed to meet, the intentions we faked to gain and the most importantly they make us vulnerable again. We are scared of giving them the power of love; afraid that they know us too well and that we have failed them somehow. We understand that by failing them, we have failed ourselves and we would do anything to avoid that admission.

So where and when does love change? Does a relationship ever die? Can the bonds of families and loves ever break?

To continue to love someone does not mean we desire to turn back the clock. It does not mean that we are trying to re-establish status quo. It simply means we are acknowledging the interconnectedness of it all. It simply means that we accept the role they have played in our lives and the role we played in theirs. It means we accept responsibility for that influence.

Love is a continuum not to be confused with our superficial behavioral swings and it does not really operate with a tense. There is no question of ‘I loved you’, ‘I love you’ ‘I will love you’. If we have accepted and loved someone once, we have accepted them forever. They are an integral part of our lives.

It simply is Love.

--- Srividya Srinivasan, 14.2.2011