05.04.05
Love is not enough when…
When I was younger, whenever I’d realize that the relationship I am in is doomed to fail, I would just tell myself that I need not fret…I’m still young. Whenever my mom would tell me to try to be serious with a guy, I would also reason to her that I’m still young and there’s no need for me yet to commit a hundred percent. Now that I’m older, I still find myself in one relationship and another, still to no success. But I can no longer assure myself that I’m still young but can’t find reason as well to worry, even if some of my friends are getting married and some are having kids.
This must be because I realized that love is neither about having all the time nor about lacking one. Love is not a race nor simply about having all the dedication towards someone. Love is not even enough guarantee for a relationship to work.
Now even if in all aspect of my life it’s in love that I’m often a failure, it’s in love that I learned how to love and value myself. I learned that love is not enough when you start losing yourself, when while with someone you forget about your ideals and the values you once strongly believed in. Love is not enough reason to stay as well in a relationship when you start thinking that it’s this guy/this relationship or nothing else.
Love is not enough reason to be with someone when you start revolving yourself only around the relationship or the guy and forget about your family, your friends, and the things you enjoy doing. If you’ve got to love someone, you don’t need to choose whom to give it or confine it to only one. Love is love at its best when it is shared.
Love is also not enough when you begin allowing the other to control you, to make you the person whom he wishes he’s with. You are already YOU - with your own set of people and activities you find joy being with or doing before he met you. Perhaps, he can help you improve but changing you to a completely different person is another story.
Love is not enough when instead of becoming a better person while in the relationship, you change into someone despising. Love should make you happier, kinder, more generous – it should make you bloom. Love should make you the best person you can be.
Most of all, love is not enough when while in a relationship you start treating yourself disrespectfully so as to please the other. This happens when you restrain yourself from being happy or growing or when you allow the other to step on your toes just to keep him or the relationship. If you don’t have enough love for yourself within you, you can’t love someone just as much for you cannot give what you lack.
Your love can’t simply hold the two of you together. But genuine love coming from the two of you can be a powerful force enough for you to brave the tides and battle the bad times. Above all, I believe that love is a blessing which only God can give in the right place in His own time. Borrowing Joshua Harris’ line, until God blesses me with that love, I will have to kiss dating goodbye.
