Love

A term that was associated once only with that which happens between a boy and a girl.

A term that was a taboo in my house because amma was sure that words like ‘love’, ‘lie’ and ‘divorce’ would lead us to act on it. She was sure that asking me ‘if I knew my friends were in love’ would lead me to fall in love with someone myself. So instead she chose to ask ‘if I knew my friends were in…(wait for it)..friendship’. Sadly I proved her theory wrong., not once but many times over in my life as I fell hopelessly and repeatedly in and out of love. 

Once upon a time it was only with the opposite sex. Then I fell in love with my job. I realised too late that I was in love with my parents. When I had my son then I was completely in love once more. Recently I learnt that I have always been in love with dance. 

There was a pattern in my love. I spent an inordinate amount of time with the love of the moment until I got over the obsessive phase. So there were days on end when I lost sleep talking to a boyfriend, did not miss dance for hail or snow or fever, worked all night long developing curriculum for children and played the same game over and over and over again with my son just cause I was in love.

So what is this love?- something you spend all your energies on? Does that mean then I don’t love my husband anymore cause the novelty is missing after 10yrs of living together? Is it fair to say o love my parents when I barely spend time talking to my mother? Where is love again when I sometimes feel the whole world would leave me alone especially my son when I just need some time with myself?

It is love alright..love for myself. 

My mother said one day that she was doing some Pooja just so that I can be happy. It was something that I was meant to be grateful for even though I didn’t think too much of it. She argued vehemently when I said she was doing this for herself and not for me. ‘How could u say that? I don’t benefit from this. It is just for you and your family only.’ Did she understand that she does this for me because she is in love with me? That she does this so that ‘her’ child lives well. That she does this because it is ‘her’ belief that it will be for the good? That ‘she’ will feel good if this is done? 

So when you think about it, every single thing that we do is out of love for ourselves. The abused wife stays in a marriage because ‘she’ may not want to face the repercussions of a broken marriage. The teacher teaches in a school disinterestedly because ‘She’ may need the money that comes from the job. A child stays in school unwillingly without realising that he is there because he loves to escape the punishment that he would be given if he bunks school.

Doing something only comes from love but so does not doing something. Every single action we do or don’t do is out of love for ourselves, our ego, our beliefs, our values, our priorities, our principles, our likes and dislikes. Every moment is lived and not lived only because of love. 

I hope this understanding translates to realisation in me.

Love is always with us.