No Love, However Brief, Is Wasted.
Isn’t it interesting that sometimes there are questions that seem kinda tough on the surface, but deep down, you’ve got a sense about the answer, even if you can’t quite put it into words? We know it by heart, but not so much to translate it into something that could be understood by everyone. Like how when you’re asked about “Why can’t we survive underwater?” You’ll most likely say it’s because we need oxygen to breathe. Technical questions with absolute answers. But when asked “What do you know about love?” You’ll froze for a moment and will probably be dumbfounded. but, by heart, you know a number of things about it. Maybe it’s because the answer is mostly felt and not described. The complexity of human nature and our wide range of emotions made words not at all sufficient to measure what we know about love.
I do not know love all that well. I know how it feels, I’ve seen it in short glimpses, and in all forms of existence. I know love in all of its basic forms, but nothing more. Not enough to say that I’ve understand it. Not in a way that a monochrome life lights into something vibrant, and not in a way of two dreams merging into one. but I do know that love is brief, and eternal.
Remember those friends who send you TikToks that remind them of you, the purrrs your cat gives you whenever you pet them, those yells your mom directed at you because you didn’t eat your breakfast, The people who listens to your Spotify playlist because it gives them a sense of closeness to you, or as little as those people who purposely walks on the side closest to the road on sidewalks. I mean, I know enough to know that if I look for it, love actually is, all around.
I love and have loved many people in my life, even if we don’t talk anymore, I still love them in one way or another. And it’s not like they’re dead or something, we just simply…grew apart? By whatever reason it is, we don’t talk or text each other like we used to. I never hated any of them for parting ways; I still do care about them and willing to open my arms whenever they do need me any time. For the most part, those people came into my life to teach me how to love; and a few others came to teach me how not to love. Regardless of what they feel for me, I still wish them the best in life and I am grateful that I’ve met all these people and made great memories with them. All my love is mine to give, and the purity of my intent remains pure within me. What they do with the love I give does not reflect me but a telling of them.
Sometimes I do feel stupid for being too available to people. I do feel afraid to be taken for granted or taken advantage by them. Hell, I DID get taken for granted a couple of times and my friends are probably tired from hearing stories about it. But the optimistic side of me, some might call it naive, can’t help but wonder how beautiful it would be if we loved without restraint. To just believe that the love we give will eventually get back to us on a random Thursday from a stranger on the train station saying how our outfit looks great and offers us a little bit of their pretzel that they bought from Auntie Anne’s. Or how amazing it would be for love to be waiting for us in a text from a friend who’s staying overseas, saying “Hey I miss you, can you call me when you have the time?”. Maybe if we are in a constant state of believing that love is around the corner, we wouldn’t be so hesitant to give love away to other people.
To anyone who’s reading this within the depths of time, and if by chance, you know or knew me at whatever age we were then, just know that I don’t hate you and I never will. Regardless of how long we’ve been in each other’s lives or how quickly we drifted apart. I have love. I have not seen it all, but I know it, and it knows me. I couldn’t have been mistaken to have loved and it couldn’t have been a mistake to have cared. And i know love like mine exists somewhere because I exist.
No love, however brief, is wasted.
