Love..

Everyone, irrespective of age, gender and race, loves to be loved. It is a universal experience free to all who seek it. It causes the strongest of men to falter, it stirs up emotions in the coldest of hearts, it sends people up to the clouds. Love is a complicated feeling. Infatuation on the other hand...

Many of us recognise the feeling; our heart skips a beat (sometimes two) and we get drowzy. We feel blood rushing throughout our bodies and we feel instantly energized. It all happens when we fall in love.

I've felt the feeling many times before. Yes, I've fallen in love many times before but the relationship usually lasts a few minutes =). ( Call it love if you want, it doesn't really matter) . What I've discovered is that falling in love is a particularly easy thing to do. It requires not much effort and requires no commitments. There are no boundaries to whom you can fall in love with.

Staying in love however, is a very different matter. It takes courage and commitment to stay together. It requires sacrifices to be made on both parties. It requires people to soldier on, even in testing times. In short, it demands a herculean effort to stay in love.

Sadly, most people never stay in love for long. Sooner or later, the affection that once held the relationship together so tightly wears off. There comes a point in time where either side of a party deems the relationship not worth the sacrifice. The relationship ends. They fall out of love.

Falling out of love shares nothing in common with falling in love with the exception that both are easy things to do. Whenever things seem bleak in a relationship, the easiest thing to do is to call it quits. It seems that most people end up in a scenario as aforesaid.

I've never stayed in a realtionship long enough to know what being in love is all about. But from what I hear, they say that love is blind. It strikes at any moment; oftentimes when we least expect it. I also hear that Cupid's arrow can bring two tremendously differing people together; usually at a great cost. i.e. in Lord of the Rings, Arwen gave up her immortality to be with Aragorn; an act of utmost love.

On my part, I think that love is not bound by anything. It is by far the greatest emotion that humankind can feel; even greater than the rational mind. In retrospect, I take great pride in echoing what Arwen once told Aragon:

The light of the Evenstar does not wax and wane.
It is mine to give to whom I will.
Like my heart.
-Arwen Undomiel-