Clueless

Love as they say, makes the world go 'round.

But how does one know he is in love?

I worry on my thoughts of love, this is how it goes:

I get into trouble trying to express love. My mind seems to serve only one master at a particular time, and when the heart knocks and asks for a room in my mind, it never leaves until both of them comes to a point of argue.

Being the (well, before I got too distracted with my emotions) one with the most achievements in our family did not help at all. The whole network of our clan branded me as responsible, intelligent, respectful and honest. With these came trust. I guess they trusted me with a lot of work and a lot of expectations that I never got to feel that the world around me had hell a lot else to offer. That was my life back then, trying to fill their hunger for my performance, trying to entertain them with my ways of cleaning the house, my playing of the piano, my singing and my grades. I was dismembered by my brothers in a childish way, saying that I was too much a competition for them. I got not an ounce of help on chores and got no introductions to their friends. My taste in everything was put under harsh scrutiny and I suddenly felt my weaknesses caving in. I learned to fight in my quiet ways or shall I say I taught myself to feel numb... I cannot actually believe no one ever thought I was capable of feelings. Well part can be blamed on me since I never really showed a lot of my emotions.

All these got me nowhere in this world fueled by love. Soon after I achieved something, they would want to hear something better the next time, and being a child trying to show the world gradual success was really not very easy. It was until I met my old best friend that I learned to ease up a bit and relax. I got to enjoy the company of a lot of people. He showed me how to succeed and still keep a life running. Having been deprived of a lot of those, I went too relaxed and it did not take long before it took toll on my run for success and excellence. I got lazy and uninspired a lot of times and it did not matter to me if ever I satisfied everyone else's expectations. But what I failed to see back then was that somehow I was really trying to achieve success for myself too; that I have a hunger for praises and compliments, that I was the very person my relatives were towards me. Just when I realized that, came my first encounter with love.

It was the heaviest of all feelings I have ever felt. It was not known to me until then that the heart was capable of holding such dense emotion. My lungs malfunction at the sight of the one I loved. It was not too long until it came to that person's knowledge through my indirect means that I had a heart. My "sort of LOVE" was reciprocated. There were times I found it hard to breathe when we talked, argued, spent time together. Not seeing her was the worst situation I always had to deal with.

But the inevitable came. When I experienced love, I sank deeper in my emotions and totally rid myself off the excellence and success track (although I managed to keep above average scores and evaluations). Love has left me wanting for more each day. It has left me in a state of illusion. She got too disappointed on me. We parted ways. It was a very unpleasant ending. It took me very long before I realized that maybe it was really love I felt. Only a couple of other friends knew about it and they were skeptic about it being the right kind of love because they believe we were incompatible in the first place.

My mind and my heart tend to believe there is no such thing as wrong kind of love. If you feel it then you feel it. It does not matter to whom you feel it for. This is my kind of love. It may be wrong for a lot of people who set up imaginary constraints around them in search of a "PROPER LOVE" but I disagree. Love is for everyone. The person feeling love may interpret it wrongly but love in its pure form is and never will be wrong.

Though I am not sure to how much degree I felt it back then, I know very well that at least I have felt it. I know its symptoms and I know well now how to identify it. They say we grow wiser each day. I say we grow wiser each time we fall.

This past week, it occurred to me that I was searching once again, but it was only lately that I realized that love will find me in my most unprepared state. It may dwell somewhere else so I have to keep moving to increase the chance of me discovering it. I have these small feelings right now, that until the time I get a more concrete basis of love, I do not wish to cultivate, at least for the moment.

Sigh. It is hard to argue with oneself, but when you are in total control of everything you feel, you are more composed and you tend to make the most wonderful decisions on stuff you are confronted with plus you render yourself poised to others.

I have met a lot of interesting people and I do hope to get to know each of them more in the coming days or even years (even when space and time does not permit). I was very blessed with a personality that is easy to get along with. It is true that it will be very hard to disappoint me. In this continuous journey, I choose to proceed carrying along with me the lessons of the past, the people of the present (yes, if I know you now, trust me that I won't let go of you that easy) and my dreams of the future.