The greatest love is not bound by rules

Why do some people experience enduring love (which lasts a lifetime), while others are only destined to love for a short time?

Why are there those who separate, either by choice or by fate? These questions, we sometimes ask ourselves.

Love is the blossom and fragrance of all human feelings, thoughts, passion and longing, which inspires patience of the heart and strength of the mind, and never leaves without transforming us at the very depth of our being.

We are challenged and blessed in unique ways, but we are never left alone.

On Valentines  Day, we pay tribute to love’s ability to endure beyond years, beyond difficulty, beyond distance — even beyond even death.

Love is the most precious gift to us, because it opens the heart, uplifts the mind and inspires the spirit.

It is the sweet companion in our heart’s journey through life’s complexities — yet,  what defines our intimate relationships? What signs should we look for to discover how love reveals itself? With what insights or eloquence?

We’re told that love reveals itself in the unmatched level of understanding and friendship  — with the beloved and no one else, sometimes in what is said or what is not said but only deeply felt.

Or maybe in the obstacles lovers must face together, sometimes in the joy we feel when the relationship takes us inside ourselves.

There are places we would never go to willingly, but for love, we will do anything.

We learn when to hold on more tightly, and when to let go.

It is what teaches us to be compassionate, caring and forgiving. It develops virtues such as courage, patience, loyalty and trust.

Love takes us into every season and mood, and every color of emotion — from its  beginnings, to a challenging and deepening intimacy.

It takes us even through moments of grief, when we are forced to say goodbye to a soulmate; or through utterly sublime moments of astonishment when we rediscover a love we thought we lost.

Somehow, in each journey of love, you’ll know one love greater than anything else –  the commitment to love one another fully, completely, as deeply as we know, for as long as we can.

It’s not a commitment that has been declared to others, or perhaps even out loud between ourselves. Neither is it symbolized by a diamond, or even a simple bond of gold.

It’s not defined by time, or even the space in which we live apart or together.

Instead, it is a living commitment, re-affirmed each time we reach out to one another in pure joy, each time we tell the truth, each time one of us shares a newly uncovered insight or emotion.

It is sharing, continually revealed in each new level of trust, in each new layer of vulnerability, in each new depth of love.

Love is friendship continuously rediscovered, as each day we reach to rediscover who we really are and how much love our hearts are capable of giving.

It is a commitment that is the true marriage of spirit, whose ceremony of union is found in each and every moment that we love one another; whose anniversary is found in each and everyday in which love grows.

I thought about the adventure our minds go through together, exploring ideas and concepts, understanding our past and glimpsing our future. It is about our trust, our respect and our hunger for life and learning.

Happy Valentine’s Day, gentle readers.

***

E-mail Mylah at  [email protected]

The Filipino-American Community Newspaper. Your News. Your Community. Your Journal. Since 1991.

Copyright © 1991-2024 Asian Journal Media Group.
All Rights Reserved.