Heartache: Crazy Glue Called LOVE

“If music be the food of love… play on… says Shakespeare in the Twelfth Night.

If only love were like music… and could be turned on, and switched off at will! What makes this thing called love so interesting is that we seem to have no control at all over it. It is an emotion that we stumble into, and have to find our way. But we have real trouble when it comes to an end. It becomes hard to tear ourselves away.

Is Love then like Crazy Glue - it sticks fast, and is difficult to separate?

It would seem that way, and this is what makes it more of an enigma. One of the best ways to look at it is to detach ourselves from the emotional connect and to analyse it from a third person’s viewpoint. It is always easy to give each other people advice about love, or break-ups; however the problem is when it is happening to us. Here are some tips on how to handle this amazing emotion.

We have a need for certainity, just like we, paradoxically have a need for variety.

ENJOY THE EXPERIENCE

If we compare life to meal, where we could order what we liked from an endless menu of choices, and taste some of it - like we do at a Baskin Robbins Ice cream counter, life would surely be a lot more interesting and a lot more varied.

Then why we are, socially bound to commitments and promises of eternal loyalty?

Some of it is hard wired into our genes. we have a need for certainity, just like we, paradoxically have a need for variety. It is how we use these two powerful drives that help us be successful in the arena of love. The love of a mother for the child ensures that the child never has to fear not having love especially during the formative years. However, this too is a moving target, and most mothers at some time or the other rue the fact that they gave so much, and did not get as much love in return.

SHIFTING LOYALTIES

The shifting loyalty as we grow and evolve from relationships, of one kind to the other is what offers us the variety factor. A baby clings to the mother, and enjoys the bond with the father. Then comes the bonds that we allow to grow on us in school between our friends, or our teachers. Then the relationships with the opposite sex - first as crush or what we call puppy love, as we come to terms with the awesome power of the first-love syndrome. Here we get totally engulfed and assume that this ‘love’ will last forever. Then it comes crashing down, as we realise it was only an infatuation.

Many people are so scared by this experience that they do not recover and decide instead to stay away from any relationship that they feel will break anyway.

COMING TO TERMS WITH IT

The best way to come to terms with this experience is to enjoy every moment of it, and to take it one day at a time. Making long term plans at this stage is futile. Almost every one of the first loves is bound to be just that, the first one. Others will follow, and for those of us who enter the hallowed halls of marriage knowing that this will last forever, there are sometimes bigger shocks to follow. The increasing rate of divorce in US is reaching alarming proportions. The fast pace of life as we run the rat race in a really fast lane, trying to scamper up the corporate ladder, ensures that we pay the price of the haste-makes-waste syndrome. Take it easy. And, slow down in all sense of the term.