what is love

what is love?

this was such an easy question for her to answer when she was younger. One would think with age one would have a more refined definition for it, but it just gets blurrier.

The first time that she thought she was in love, she later concluded it was just an infatuation. the second time she was convinced she's found it. But it got burdened under commitments, marriage, kids, maybe the remnants of it remained, which she renamed as 'a promise'. Then she settled for friendship, attraction, admiration. For most part she knew it wasn't love, at other times she wondered if it was just an obsession. Her relationships broke, revived, continued randomly. She was sure she has either seen the last of love, or she doesn't know it exists in the form she thought it existed.

Until the night he came in her dreams...

She gets dreams at night. That's nothing new. She is one of those people who get explicit, vivid dreams. Sometimes of old friends, old family members, living or dead, old boyfriends. Most of the dreams are vague and don't make sense, or they appear too realistic. Many times she would wake up in the morning to realize it was just a dream. Then depending on the content, she would either be relieved, or just give a chuckle. Sometimes she could relate it to why she must have had the dream based on what's happening in her awake life. Many of her themes are recurrent, like for one friend she ALWAYS dreamed that she's single again, only to remind herself after waking up that the friend is in a rock solid marriage. And she could never understand why she's been getting the same dream for 20 years now.

She saw him in the dreams too. the usual theme would be, how to keep this a secret, as it was a very secret affair, and her dreams reflected that. Anytime she had a dream of him, it would be of them hiding, with others around who can spot or suspect them.

Except this time, it wasn't any of that. They had been separated many months. In the dream she heard someone crying loudly, and she saw the cute face of a woman looking at her from a distance and then walking away. She knew this woman but had never seen her face so clearly in dreams before. Then that scene soon changes, and she's now alone in a terrace with him. Relaxed, chill, very complete in each other's company, they talk. He's sitting at the edge of the terrace wall, she's on the connecting edge. Feet dangling, leaning towards each other. She's asking him questions like she would in real life. All real and interesting questions. He's replying like he normally did, as if he was reciting the lines of a classic novel from the 70s, reminiscing, that's how well he always spoke, clear and with abandon. They are laughing, and are very very happy and at peace. Then she wakes up, and realizes it was a dream. She goes, 'oh no no, i am closing my eyes again, let's continue talking'. But he's just sitting at the edge of the terrace, looking at her, and slowly she's drifted away from the terrace until he disappears. She opens her eyes again, pleads for him to come back, and closes her eyes again, but he's gone.

She wakes up and begins googling. Can you meet souls of living people in dreams. Answers, as usual, were conflicted. She didn't know if she had a contact, or did she imagine it all. But one thing she knew, for the first time it dawned upon her acutely, she loved him. Dearly. This was not something she felt in words, this was somethng she felt in her whole being. He was the one she could have lived with forever, in another life maybe.

By the end of the day, she broke down and cried. She found love when it was already over. Maybe that's what love is. It's love when that feeling stays as pure love; doesn't get bogged down by differences, duties, commitments. Maybe in your mind, it becomes the strongest when it's already in the past, coz now it's unchangeable, untainted in form. Maybe that's why there are a 100 songs of love that's lost ...

*Must have been love, but it’s over now *

P.s any fellow who remembers the classics from the 70’s, must have been a keeper, I say

"must have been good, but i lost it somehow".. haha but it's only in the movies that at the end of the song a handsome hunk fights his fear of heights to come to get you with a bunch of roses in his mouth... 

(correction, it was "as if he was reciting the lines of a classic novel from the 70s," and not reciting the lines from the classics)... I added the word reminiscing just coz the answers were about young childhood days)

As much as I don't want to sound dispassionate and clinical:

IMO: "love" in adolescence is OCD, totally dominated by preoccupation with the other, 24/7 - sure, blissful magical times etc., but irrational, of course!

subsequently, in the adulthood, lust masquerades as "love", proven by it's rapid deterioration/ attenuation of intensity and expression over time, and transforms itself first as indifference and eventually to almost a burden.

true love is spontaneous, largely founded on conditioning with some rationale, and always prioritizes the other before self, every which way.

dreams are whimsical, arbitrary constructs of episodes, created from a random selection of entities of past memory, with only a very few themes and their variations; they're almost always based on severe anxieties and deeply affected trauma, experienced in the past; there's never a total recall, and the details irreversibly and rapidly fade away.

And of course, willful suspension of disbelief is the way to go, acknowledging but enjoying all these

and then comes the question... 

two vulnerably positioned bodies, when one stops everything and asks out of the blue, "Do you love me?"

ummmmmmmmmmmmm

GK:
''இந்திய திருமணங்களின் சக்ஸஸ் சீக்ரெட் என்ன?'' வெளிநாட்டு ஆராய்ச்சி முடிவு
''உன்னிடம் எனக்குப் பிடித்த விஷயங்கள் எதுவும் இல்லாதபோதும், உன்னை உனக்காக மட்டுமே நேசிப்பேன்.''

I wish there is a English translator. Probably google may have one? 
If it is certified by Western Research, we would agree?

https://www.vikatan.com/news/miscellaneous/150572-same-wavelength-not-enough-to-marriage-life-says-a-research.html

er, there can be many reasons for a long marriage. i know someone who was an oldest child, and she is certain that she's the reason behind her parents' long successful marriage, coz nothing bonded them more than their sudden unison against her while they were raising her, and beyond. Like they would be in disagreement about EVERYTHING, but suddenly become one voice the moment it was time to correct her on anything. lol.

sulu wrote:and then comes the question... 

two vulnerably positioned bodies, when one stops everything and asks out of the blue, "Do you love me?"

ummmmmmmmmmmmm

"100 %" is the conditioned, known solution- never fails