Love and be loved

Love is like a mustard seed;planted by God and watered by men- Muda Saint Michael

Today’s the day again. When pink and red heart shaped thingamajigs adorn various shop-fronts, overgrown teddy bears sit contentedly inside shop windows, covered in frilly, lacey strewn bits of God alone knows what. Flowers of every species and colour seem to bloom out of nowhere, their prices blooming up together with them. What’s all the fuss about? Two words. Valentine’s Day.

There are many versions of the story surrounding the birth of this very lovey-dovey day, but they all have the same theme. Celebrating Love. These days Valentine’s day has been so commercialized that we forget the reason it exists in the first place. It’s not a day limited to boyfriend-girlfriend or husband-wife relationships. It’s a day where people get together and celebrate love. Love for a friend, a brother, a sister, parents. A day where we humbly appreciate everyone in our life for being little parts that make you whole.

I have heard of people who get terribly, unbelievably down at the thought of Valentine’s Day simply because he or she doesn’t have a date when everyone else seems to receiving a truckload of flowers, gifts and chocolates. No offence, but isn’t that rather silly? Isn’t that egoistic? To want the whole world to know that you’re ‘loved’ just on ONE day? Isn’t that too showy? I mean seriously, if you get a whole bunch of flowers in the office, what the heck are you gonna do with it the rest of the day? Leave it on your desk to wilt? Stuff it in your water container?

Besides that, what’s the big deal if you don’t have a date for Valentine’s? It’s a day to commemorate love, is love merely limited to romantic relationships? What about family? Can’t you love your friends and those around you? Why the big hue and cry if you have to spend Valentine’s ‘alone’?

Love is not something to be exploited. Love is when a mother puts her life before her child’s. Love is when a dog defends its master regardless of its own safety. It’s when feelings defy the principle of maths and logic. It’s when one plus one becomes one, not two. Hearts beating in tandem. Love is not measured by how overstuffed the teddy bear is, or how big the bouquet of flowers are, or how many digits are on the tag of expensive trinkets. In truth, love is measured by how much you care. It’s sown in faith, watered in joy, and pruned with trust. It’s not cordoned off to how grand and showy one day can be, but by how much the other 364 days matter in the equation. Valentine’s can be everyday if you know how to value what it’s all about. Similarly, it can be just any other day if it’s callously ‘celebrated’.

Innocence

Innocence. One word. Bliss. There are times when you just wish fervently that you could go back. Go back to the times when innocence was something taken for granted. When you could look at the skies and wish upon stars, really believing that your wishes could really come through. Times when the only ghosts that exists are those in your closet, not those in your mind. The shattering of innocence, the surfacing of reality.

Time transcends all things. That swing in the park that used to make you think you could reach up and touch the sky evolves into a plank of wood held up by chains. Grown-ups don’t seem so gargantuan anymore. Pain is promoted to an emotional level. Your mind begins to point out things that your eyes refuse to acknowledge. A seed of doubt blossoms into a tree that takes root deep down in your heart. And then you start wishing. Wishing that you could turn back time. Wishing that you could limit your thoughts to nothing beyond ice-cream and cakes. Wishing that sometimes, fairy-tales were more than fiction. Wishing that happy endings do exist. Wishing that time doesn't change things.

But in it all, you shake at the thought of mortality. You wish you could outrun time, but ever persistent, it catches up with you, in the form of Age. Ask someone, what would you like to do before you die? Answers would probably range from watching the sun rise in the smile of a loved one, climb Mount Everest, go sky-diving, meet up with long lost friends, walk my little girl down the aisle, knowing she’ll be cared for. Different people, caught in different phases in life.

3 words

I am back