The life and mind of Adeline Ong

About a week ago, I received a text message asking me to explain, “What is love?�
At first, I thought, “What a funny thing to ask now. After all final exams have begun and I doubt that there is a topic on love being discussed for this exam. Unless someone has words that it will be the next essay question.�

Anyhow, back to the topic of LOVE. Lurve, luv… L.O.V.E….Ai.. Cinta…Amour… no matter how you spell it or in how many different language you can say it. It still bears the same weight as a topic.

The topic of love has been an interest of human kind ever since time began. But honestly what is love?

We tell the people we care about that we love them. We tell it to our family members, we say it with passion to our lovers, we urge others to make love not war in the 70s, we tell the public to love Mother Earth… yes we tell the world to spread the love but what is actually love.

For me, I have always defined love as the emotion which gives birth to the other emotions. Why do I say so? This is because when you are in love, there is a mixture of emotions, you get confused, not being able to pin one emotion down. Because of love, you can feel sad, happy, angry, jealousy, bitterness, hatred, greed, calmness and all the other emotions which I cannot fathom at this moment.

You will feel sad when your love leaves you.
You feel happy when you and your love are together.
You get angry when your love hurts you.
You feel jealous when your love gives attention to others.
You hate the people who hurt your love.
You feel greedy when your love does not give you the fullest attention.

But how do explain love in its purest form? Is there even an explanation?

For a person, that many have approached for ‘love advice’, I hate to say that I am not the best candidate for such advice, mostly what I have been dishing out is probably relationship advice. But I guess it still works since that communication and a good relationship is an essential part of love.

So we kind of figure out what love is. Though each individual has his or her own interpretation and styles of going about it.

From young, I believe it would be safe to say that our first encounter with love began as soon as our mothers acknowledge our presence in their wombs. That is the love of a mother to her child. After nine months, we get more love. Basically, our first experience is the love of the family.

But no sooner that you were born, you begin to experience a new love. The bond of friendship, the love we create when two beings have a platonic relationship, caring for each other as two companions can. The loyalty that is built through trust and most importantly the respect for each other because of the deep love we have for each other.

After that I would like to trickle into the topic of love as in the love between two lovers. But when we were young, we experience some kind of love for the opposite sex (perhaps the same sex in some cases). There is always the first crush as well as puppy love. I am not sure about others. My first crush was when I was 9. I am still in touch with this guy though we have been on different routes since. He is in a very happy relationship for all I know. But being so young, how would I know what is love? In fact, I am not sure if it was love.

According to Katherine Hepburn, “ Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get – only what you are expecting to give.”

I guess it is true. I may sound very obnoxious to say that in all my relationships I have been the giver and in the end receive more pain than expected. Then again, that is me. Never been in a NORMAL relationship. Perhaps I should live until my old days a spinster. Can you imagine me, sitting on an old rocking chair on the front verandah, knitting, surrounded by dozens of cats, screaming at kids to get off my lawn? Hahaha! Okay, I am starting to sound like a bitter old lady. But love is confusing. I can’t say if I want it around or not.

Ever wonder why we always hurt the person we love and that love us back the most? It is because love is forgiving as well. We are willing to look beyond the faults of our loved ones and them the same. However, we are only human and we have our limits. We can only hurt someone just enough to push them out of our lives.
Love is a delicate game of give and take.

For those romantics and believers of love:- What are you willing to give for love?

April 26th, 2006 | Musings, Reflections | 6 Comments »