I have never called anyone the love of my life because it seems way too presumptuous to do so before we are actually on our death-bed. Another thing is that I don’t think our current romantic circumstances allow us to have only one great love. We live too fast, we have too many possibilities. Also, as we mature, as we change….so does our life. Thus, the life I had a few years ago is not the same as the one I have now. So, a love of mine from back then could as well have been the love of my life – back then.
Let’s admit it: we don’t have the values that our grand parents used to have. We don’t want to settle down before we’re 30 and even then we’re hardly ever sure of what we want. We want to stay, we want to go. We want freedom, we want deep commitment. We don’t know how to make a serious decision. The fact here is that a decision means gaining something on one end…and losing something on the other. We know about ‘forever’ because we have heard the story in some fairy tale…but at this point it really freaks us out…because we don’t understand it. I think we have come to realise that the world is huge and that our lives are short…so how can we then cope with the idea of eternity with only one person? Heck, I can’t even begin to understand eternity. Sometimes, lying on the beach in the summer, I look up at the beautiful blue sky and I imagine the eternity that lies behind it: the endless space, the endless possibilities, and no end to anything? The rapture between that and the finality of our lives scares me and I panic. It seems utterly unfair. The scariest thing is that I cannot perceive it because, sadly, everything in our lives has an end and I have no way of knowing what will indeed last forever.
Coincidentally a friend of mine had a long talk with a guy about this exact thing. He told her that the idea of eternal love scared the hell out of him (a man scared of that? bless his heart). She then suggested that we should live our lives by segments…and have many loves. Actually, I think that is what we are doing. All of the time. Living day by day… hoping to be sure that we have what we want…or at least working towards figuring that out. I think ‘forever’ became a label that no one can afford to buy. Like dinosaurs, we will soon be talking about it in the past tense…knowing it existed, but having no real way of experiencing it ourselves.
I went to visit my cousin today and we went to the cemetery where both of my grand parents are buried. “If our grandpa were still alive he would shoot the boys that ever dared to hurt us, you know”, she said. I smiled because I knew she was right…and in some way I wished he were still with us. Because he was a real man, because he protected us…and because he really wouldn’t allow anything bad to happen to us. Looking at the tombstone I mentioned that our grandma didn’t live for long after he passed away. We then started looking around…one spouse died in 2007, the other one in 2008. Both spouses died in 2011. 2001-2002, 1997 – 1999… There was the same story on almost every step. See, my dear friends… That is what I call the love of one’s life. When one life ends…so does the other.
Don’t get me wrong. However romantic that may seem…honestly, thank god that times are changing.
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