The Unconditional Love

The one good thing about being on automatic pilot is that you become an audience to your own movie. Like someone on the sidelines, you stand back and observe yourself carry out your day-to-day, and repeat the necessary pre-programmed answers to the people around you. There are phases in life when you feel like a zombie… the living dead: when your body and soul somehow no longer co-exist. You take the time to rethink your life, to seek for answers and wait for this phase to pass.
Dodging another invitation to go out on the weekend, I sat staring at my computer screen hoping that time would quickly catapult me into the weekend, when an e-mail caught my attention. Nothing pleases me more than sharing ideas with great minds. Great minds don’t necessarily mean over the average intelligence, although it is a trait developed by curiosity. A great mind to me is one that is carried by an independent spirit: an honest and courageous free thinker who isn’t afraid to live and express himself… in this case herself. In her latest blog, my good friend posted a poem by a woman that asks her lover permission to love him. She threw herself and her pride at his feet just so that she may have the privilege to adore him. On any other given day, I might have thought that my friend had lost all her marbles, considering that a thousand suns will burn out before she ever throws herself at a man’s feet. And being the proud woman that she is, it intrigued me that she would post such a poem.

I dared to open my eyes and peek at the other people around me. Being spaced out like I’d been lately, I hoped that the meditation class would either bring me back to earth or take me even farther away. Either way, I needed something… anything.., to reconnect my mind, body and soul. We were instructed to close our eyes, feel the music and dance. Only when we could no longer think about anything could it be considered meditation. On any other given day, if I’d opened my eyes, I’d probably sat down and laughed my head off at the faces and movements that everyone else was making. One woman swung her arms dangerously, looking like an overgrown butterfly; to my right there was one who seemed to be running on the spot and in front of me was a lady who swung around so fast that just looking at her began making me feel nauseous. I searched for my cousin who wasn’t too far to my left. She swayed her arms and shoulders gently and wore an expression of pure bliss. They say that we all have moments of sheer beauty, I watched her as she had hers.
Taking one last look around, I saw a lady with a baby on in her arms. The baby laughed and giggled as she spun her around and the mother held her protectively whilst becoming one with her infant. I sighed as I longed for a connection… any kind of connection to help me feel alive. Closing my eyes once again, I blocked out my thoughts and allowed the music to take over. I’m not sure exactly sure how it was that I danced… but I considering that I was out of breath, it must’ve been something to see and laugh about!

The sound of silence. After forty minutes of dancing, we all lied down to twenty minutes of silence. At first I thought of humming Simon & Garfunkel to myself but then memories took over. Happy thoughts, sad thoughts… I took the opportunity to think once again about the poem my good friend had posted on her blog. It sounded preposterous to me that anyone would ever ask anyone for permission to feel. Had her lover given her a negative answer, would she have stopped loving him? When the floods of emotion are opened, how do you stop them? Can you stop them? It seems to me that you either give time a chance to diminish them or you learn to live with them, either way, you can’t stop your heart from feeling.
My lovely cousin told me a story about a wise man that used to say that inside him lived two dogs. One dog was vicious and angry; the other was a loving and gentle. The student then asked which of the two would prevail and the master answered, “Whichever one I chose to feed.”
Not long ago I was asked if I believed in destiny… my answer was yes but I made it clear that of the distinction between destiny and Fate: Both of which I believe in.
Fate is that which we have no control over, that which has already been planned or not… however, which cannot be escaped.
Destiny is something which belongs to all of us and that is controlled by the thoughts and decisions we make. Whilst Fate may bring about circumstances that we cannot control, Destiny is what we make of that fate by the attitudes we chose to have.
If our minds and thoughts are controlled by Destiny which we are the masters, our hearts are controlled by Fate… that which we have no control over. And so to love someone, can never be a premeditated step nor one that can be ended by will, choice or demand. How can you ask permission to love someone if your own heart does not give you that choice?
Unconditional love is the kind that simply is, even when it is wrong to be.
Even the most intelligent of people I know, have fallen in love with the wrong kind of people. Maybe he’s married, or he’s a drug addict, or he’s gay… maybe it’s the distance that makes it impossible or perhaps it’s the knowledge that under no circumstances are you capable of making each other happy. Maturity and courage is what makes a woman walk away from the man she loves. It’s the knowledge that love isn’t enough to make you happy that drives a woman on putting up the white flag.

It takes courage to stand and fight, it takes even more courage to know when the battle is lost and to surrender.

Even when the decision to give up is made, we’re always tempted to turn back and give in to bittersweet temptation. Just because you make the right decision, doesn’t erase the way you feel. Instead, you begin to see the other person from a self-created prison… always tempted to reach out but kept in by the bars built around your heart. It’s a condition so sad and depressing that it can drive some to madness while it slowly kills the souls of others. You fight the urge to run; to get on a plane; to dial that number or even to cry, while you feign a smile and tell everyone around you that you couldn’t be better. Your heart breaks down, not willing to feel anything else but the pain, your minds shuts down from the confusion created of the internal right or wrong war, and your body is left to survive on it’s own whilst the world continues to spin, oblivious to your suffering. However, you survive and you grow stronger and admit that maturity saved your soul… time heals your wounds and even though you might not ever stop loving that someone… you heart learns once again to live and love bigger and better than before.
I wondered if my good friend shared these thoughts when she posted her blog, if perhaps she too wasn’t screaming out in frustration to deaf ears. I wondered if I myself am not suffering from the same condition, thus the lack of colour in the world around me… if this is the case, then there’s nothing to be said and so… we wait, for time to pass, for the page to be turned and for the morning to bring forth a new day, a new chapter, a new life… a new love.