I've witnessed that process so many times. Being the last born, I had my siblings to observe and then ofcourse, I'd missed that process with my parents and only got to see the end result. They'd spoken of many things but never once mentioned that it was a meeting out of the ordinary. Even so, nothing will make me believe that what they have isn't real love. What else could have kept them glued together for over 50 years?
At times, I saw them, arguing one minute, and slow-dancing the next. I saw them disagreeing on a subject one minute and then asking each other for answers the next. I saw how totally incomplete my dad would even LOOK, when my mum was away from him for too long a time and then I watched him literally glow the very moment that he'd either heard her voice or saw her face. And that was just last year.
What I saw was the aftermath of true love. Because there is an aftermath. In everything, there is an aftermath. In love? It's your life together once you've found it. Just like a volcano. The aftermath of its eruption is that scorched part of the earth. And the life of it's survivors, thereafter. That's how I view my parents' love. I wasn't there to watch them meet, fall in love, get married, have us...I came in the midst of their aftermath yet still? To this day, it has its moments of inspiration for me.
At 41 years old, I've done it their way. And in between that, I've done it, as what turned out to be, my own way. I'd loved in person. I'd loved from a distance. And then I'd loved, inexplicably. Simply put? I fell in love the "normal" way. And then I fell in love, my way. Guess what?!? There doesn't have to be lightning bolts in the sky or meteors dropping from it either. It just feels that way. There's no tell-tale sign that it would be THAT particular day that your life would change forever. Nohhhh, no. What fun would that be, right? Right!
Ofcourse, before I knew what pure love really was, I believed that I'd found it. At least a part of it, if that's at all possible. Is it? Possible, I mean? 'Cause I had the butterflies. The racing heartbeat. The thoughts that wouldn't go away no matter what I was doing. And it happened in that normal order too. Except? It appears that my love life, like so many others', wasn't meant only for the conventional experiences. Nope. Which is fine by me since I'd rather be amongst the smaller population than it's counterpart. Conventional anything, get's you conventional everything, right? Well? Maybe. Maybe not. I'm sure that someone out there would argue that very point but lemme just ask you this? Have you ever experienced love at first sight?
I have.
We all knew that it exists, especially us girls, didn't we? All the way back to the days when we silently fantasize about being that someone that another person would immediately fall in love with, even without seeing us first thing in the morning. HA! From all the way back to those days when we would write our very own love stories about how Ken met Barbie and how they'd fall in love and become each other's happy and everlasting end.
But that's the thing about fantasy and make-believe. You get to make it whatever you want it to be. The only hang-up with that privilege is that once your mum calls you in at the end of your play time? It is then that you realize that anything less than reality, is merely temporary. As I got older, though, I realized too that anything that IS reality, can also be temporary. That's the difference between age and experience.
From as far back as I can remember, I've always wished for a love SO GINORMOUS that it defied all and any sense or explanation. One that would tell me in it's own rebellious way that, "you've been chosen by his soul." The times throughout my life that I did have love, I still found myself searching for more. Something. More. Not knowing whether it was out there or not but even that? Even not knowing. It was never something that stopped any one person from either dreaming, wanting or continuing their search for whatever it was that their hearts pined for.
But then it begs certain questions. Does that mean that I did infact have true love? Or no? Does it mean that maybe I just had plain ol' love? If such a thing exists. Maybe I got bored? Greedy even? I don't know the answer to that. All I know is that I'd decided that once I'd found it? My search would be over. My heart would settle down. I'd be complete and we'd ride into the sunset and live happily ever after. That at that point, I'd clutch onto it like bunjy chord and hold on for dear life and then spend the rest of my days, enjoying both my more and the notion that I never gave up.
Love at first sight? It's not a myth. It's not a script written specifically for a romantic movie. And it's certainly not a lie. It's a truth that you spend half your lifetime trying to fathom and the other half revelling in its total disregard for the rules. I do feel, even as I type this. I feel chosen, still, by his soul and it feels exactly as I thought it would. For me, it can't get any deeper than that. Apart or not. Nothing will change our moment in time. Nothing will make it un-happen. Nothing will ever convince me that I don't know what pure love is.
Two things happened to me that night. I'd found my soulmate. And I'd found that love that made no sense whatsoever. But then....a third thing happened. Circumstance decided that I'd lose him the very next day. "Oh? How can he be your soulmate then?" I knew you'd ask...Well?
Firstly? Certain experiences in life, they kinda slap you square in the face with a giant blinding sign that flashes, "This is your level of bravery. And yes, loosely translated? You're a big ol' quacking chicken!" I wasn't brave enough to defy circumstance and if I could go back, I'd surely be less of a coward and more of whatever it was that I'd absolutely needed to be at the time. My one chance was blown completely. You wanna know why? Not like I haven't already told you. But I'll tell you again. Because I let my head decide that what my heart begged for for soooooh long? Was ill-timed. Because it was...remember my post about finding your soulmate? And it being the wrong time?
Secondly? And lemme just say this. Your reaction or lack thereof, to an extraordinary moment, doesn't take away it's extraordinary--ness! All it means is that you either reacted to it the way that it deserved or you didn't. Which is why I can safely say, almost sixteen years later, that he IS my soulmate. The fact that I just let him walk away, won't change that.
It won't change the fact that he was the one who exposed to me, just how limitless love truly can be. Or that he was the one who showed me what my heart was capable of feeling, without a physical presence, without another word spoken, without another sight seen. Without all of those things that usually caused a love to grow from absolutely nothing. As if all of me, fused, with all of him and it didn't matter from that point on, where we were in this big ol' world or even who it was that we were with. He'd carry with him a part of me and I'd carry with me, a part of him.
No, nothing has and nothing will change that because he was the one who had consumed me so much that the few moments we'd shared that night, still causes my heart to bulge today. It was only when he sat side by side with me that I'd completely lost sight or recognition of my surroundings where every single person in that room disappeared and left just the two of us to do what soulmates did. And he was the one that life kept leading me to, at the most unexpected times until in some way shape or form, he'd finally have a physical presence in my life.
I believe that we get what we wish for in two ways. One? We settle for what feels the closest to it and then brand it as that. I've been there. I was wrong. The other, we meet our granted wish head on. The thing about settling though, for me? It's that it's never enough. Not that never enough, where you can't get enough. But that never enough that forces you to sometimes sit and wonder "is this is all that there ever will be."
I really don't know what it was that compelled me to write this. It might have been the feeling that I would burst if I didn't get it out. Or it might be that I'm trying to tell the world, or anyone reading this, that love is possible, even in reverse. That's what love at first sight feels like. Love in reverse. And nothing can be purer than loving when you don't have a reason to. Reasoning comes from the head. Loving comes from the heart. But loving without a reason comes from the soul.
Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom - let your email find you!
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